(NCS writer Andy Synn reviews the new album from Norway’s Blood Red Throne.)
I’ll tell you now that for me Death Metal is an easy genre to like, a hard one to truly love. But the bands that do it for me, REALLY do it for me. And Blood Red Throne are one of those bands. From the moment a close friend introduced me to “Slaying The Lamb” (off the inimitable Come Death) I was hooked, making it my mission to collect all their previous releases and stay up to date with every subsequent recording and line-up shift.
Perhaps one of the important factors that really drew me into the depths of the band’s crimson hell was the presence of former Emperor collaborator Tchort (also of Green Carnation and Carpathian Forest), his contributions giving each album an air of blackened malevolence that oozed from every pore, immediately setting the band apart from their Floridian-influenced brethren. Accompanying the distinctive and demolishing riffs produced by the pairing of Død and Tchort, the demented and crazed bass-lines flowing from the homunculus fingers of Erland Caspersen are the second key element whose presence is vital to Blood Red Throne’s distinctive sound. His scaly, slithering playing thrums with unholy power, sweeping and weaving with an eerie clarity and electricity that places him firmly in the company of masters such as Webster, Boyer and DiGorgio.
One might notice, however, that the band’s visual aesthetic has definitely shifted this time round, reflecting the major line-up changes that have taken place in the years preceding this record’s birth. With the departure of Tchort and the addition of a new guitarist, Ivan Gujic, and a new drummer, 19 year old prodigy Emil Wiksten, one might worry that this aesthetic shift reflects some fundamental change in the group’s sound. Thank Satan himself, then, that the core membership of main guitarist Død, agile-fingered bassist Casper Erlandsen and gravel-throated frontman Vald have stuck to their guns, demonstrating admirable confidence by preserving the sound and identity which they have developed over the course of 5 albums, refusing to react with knee-jerk predictability to their recent upheavals. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »
