Thoren – Gwarth II

Label: Drylands Records
Release date: 7-02-2020

Thoren releases their 3rd album Gwarth II, and this is the continuation of Gwarth I. The instrumental noise collective from Detroit, releases an explosion of sound to knock you out on a Monday morning and make you forget that you will need to survive the rest of the week. If you want some destruction in a death, prog, noise metal, you are in for some blast. 26.15 minutes of blasting thunder.

Drums are furious from track 1. I kept asking what was happening with the crazy rhythm that has erupted from hell. And it jumps to the 2nd track pretty fast. Songs are short. And messy. The drum breaks sounded slowed down and the drum style varies from song to song, maybe a reflection of the fact of having 2 different drummers in the recording roster. I would like to understand why do they need them both. I started trying to understand what were the common things between them and what differed from one another.

“Egladhrim” has some interesting variation, because we can notice some different guitar sounds. The absolute palate cleanser is the following track “Lithui”. No drums, or aggressiveness at all, to be honest, in this track. But ok, I guess every record needs a track to show mom and dad that we are not absolute mind destroyers. “Firen” will follow the same idea, at the end. Just in time to send us to bed after beating us almost to death.

All in all, it’s an interesting Thoren album. I haven’t decided if I liked it or not. I’ll give them the live music test if I can.

Line up:

• Anthony Lipari – Guitars
• Joseph Paquette – Bass
• Alex Cohen – Session Drums (Tracks 2, 5, 7, 9)
• Kenny Grohowski – Session Drums (Tracks 1, 3, 4, 6)

01. Gwarth
02. Naeg
03. Thaw Gur
04. Vex
05. Gorthad
06. Raun Raeg
07. Egladhrim
08. Lithui
09. Suith
10. Firen

Links:

Facebook
Bandcamp