For those of our visitors new to the band Thørn, they’re a Milanese group formed by members of the Italian hardcore DIY scene. And hardcore/crust-punk does provide a key ingredient to their music, but that’s only one of many, which also include black metal, grindcore, and more besides. Not for naught do they cite the diverse influences of such bands as The Secret, Trap Them, Baptists, Cursed, and Oathbreaker.
They released their first EP (self-titled) through Indelirium Records in 2018, and followed that with a split with the Estonian crust-punk band Ognemot. Now, they’re ready to hit the streets again with a debut album fittingly named Inferno, which will see a limited tape release on March 30th through the collaboration of Vita Detestabilis Records and Fiadh Productions — and today we present the album’s full stream.
In a way, Thørn first introduced the album a year ago with a video (beautifully made by by Marco Balzano) for the lyrically grim song “Drowning“, which initially appeared on that split with Ognemöt and included a guest vocal appearance by Topper from the Italian band Spleen Flipper.
Leached of color, the video itself presents a succession of grim scenes. The song itself greets the ears with the whine of feedback and hammering drums, and with a heavy grinding bass line and peals of dismal and desperate melody. Lightning flashes in the video and the riffing erupts in slashing chords, coupled with furious screams.
The drumming drives the music hard and fast, and eventually erupts in a fury just as the stringed instruments create a sonic maelstrom. When the tumult subsides, the guitars ring and writhe in sounds of tension and agony, with the vocals doubled to combine those scorching screams with deep roars. The sound of the bass takes on warmer tones, but the song’s intensity is wrenching even in this less hectic movement.
Thørn followed “Drowning” with the premiere of “Gallows“, which immediately precedes it in the running order of the album. That song is a howling conflagration right from the start. The music blazes and soars and the drums pump live overdriven pistons. Then the riffing becomes a maniacal convulsion, with vocals that themselves are incinerating. In constant flux, the song also stomps and towers, clobbers and seethes, creates a desolate sonic panorama, and leaves the listener immersed in a disturbing feeling of severe distress.
The album includes seven more songs in addition to these two, including the title track which opens the album. Like those first two, the other seven generate a multitude of dark moods, rendered with shattering emotional intensity and visceral propulsive power.
“Inferno“, for example, brings immense weight and a feeling of crushing oppression, drawing perhaps on influences from post-metal and doom. The drums there sound like an avalanche in progress as the guitars groan, moan, and heave — but of course the bloodspray vocals sound like a man violently turning himself inside out. And again, Thørn demonstrate the capacity to make their music tower like an obsidian monument.
Not surprisingly, the album includes a song actually named “Monolith“. Daunting and momentous in some of its aspects, it’s also a violent, pulse-pounding riot, and sometimes the guitars sound like screaming sirens of pain. The band follow that with the blazing and ruthlessly bone-smashing “Flegias“, and the hardcore-fueled mayhem of “Heretic“, whose bleak and bruising breakdown is made for ruining necks.
If you’re looking for any chance to take deep breaths, you might find it in the opening of “Seventh“, but the groaning drone and dismal ring of its introductory phase won’t allow for easy breathing — it’s too grim and hopeless for that. Even when the song ramps up into sensations of brazen defiance, the music doesn’t banish the bleakness, but just makes it more harrowing, and ultimately deranged.
The album culminates in “Tongues“, which sounds like a soundscape of plague and furious madness even though the drum-drive will get your heart pounding (and there’s a jackhammering finale that risks spinal trauma), and the mid-paced “Traitors“, which creates another monument — of utter calamity and ruinous downfall. Once again, the vocals hold nothing back, giving that final song, like the album as a whole, feelings of shattering fury and untreatable pain.
You’ll soon see for yourselves that Thørn pull no punches. For pitch-black times they’ve made a record that’s an explosive form of emotional catharsis, punishing on many levels but full of fight. Even though rage and nihilism come through more strongly than hope, the music is confrontational at its core. It seems to see a severely damaged world with clear eyes, but it doesn’t back down.
Inferno was recorded, mixed, and mastered by Fabio Intraina at Trai Studio (Inzago, Italy). It’s being released by Vita Detestabilis Records and Fiadh Productions in an extremely limited run of 100 tapes, and a digital release is available from the band. Future collaborations with other labels for the CD format are expected.
For more info about how to get this release, check the links below.
TAPES:
https://vitadetestabilisrecords.bandcamp.com/album/inferno
https://fiadh.bandcamp.com/album/inferno
DIGITAL:
https://thorncrust.bandcamp.com
FOLLOW THØRN:
https://www.facebook.com/Thorncrust/
https://www.instagram.com/thorncrust/