Thornspawn
Empress from the Realms of Blasphemy
[Baphomet/Necropolis]
FUCK!!! Great to hear two of my favorite things in one band - 1) not forgetting that the word "METAL" is in "BLACK METAL" and 2) a US Black Metal band proving the naysayers wrong yet again.... Thornspawn follows up their debut "Blood of the Holy, Taint Thy Steel" with "Empress From the Realms of Blasphemy", an impressive four-song EP. Since someone at the mastering plant fucked up the promo I've only got three songs (the fourth is just a demo version of the first song), so this is short enough to go song-by-song:
First up is the title track, and it starts out BLASTING, with Blackthorn's excellent in-your-face drumming right at the front of the mix. It's not the same style, obviously, but the general approach to drums on this makes me think of Paul Ledney's drumming in Profanatica - there are lots of fills and change-ups in the beats that bring the drums out to the front of the music. Then it gets to a KILLER slower-midpaced section that just fucking slays. Man, I love it when bands can get midpaced sections like this - good riffs that aren't just slow triplet strumming, and Blackthorn again does an excellent job with the drumming, keeping a basic beat and then spicing it up with tons of quick fills and double-kick runs.
Following this killer opening is Everlasting Siege of the Necrosoldiers; it starts midpaced with another great riff over a 'triumphant strut' beat with more killer double-bass work. How the hell does Blackthorn have time to sing with drumming like this? Of course it later changes to some more fast blasting, then back and forth between different tempos and feels. It's a credit to the songwriters that they can pull this off without it sounding forced.
Finally, we have Master of the Bloodfury, a real scorcher. It's very fast and riffy all the way through, until of course it hits more of those killer midpaced sections. There's even a great, chaotic guitar solo towards the end of this one (a bit buried in the mix, but effective nevertheless).
Overall, I've only got one gripe with this album (aside from the tracking slip-up I mentioned earlier, which is supposedly only on the promo discs so you probably won't have to worry about it...) - the guitars are kinda buried in the mix and have a bit of a thin sound to them, and with the bass also lacking in the mix and the drums forward you really have to crank it to get a good earful of the excellent riffing on this EP. Still, it's 14 minutes of insane black metal that leaves me wanting to hear more from this horde. Hail Satan.
© 2001 lord vic
First up is the title track, and it starts out BLASTING, with Blackthorn's excellent in-your-face drumming right at the front of the mix. It's not the same style, obviously, but the general approach to drums on this makes me think of Paul Ledney's drumming in Profanatica - there are lots of fills and change-ups in the beats that bring the drums out to the front of the music. Then it gets to a KILLER slower-midpaced section that just fucking slays. Man, I love it when bands can get midpaced sections like this - good riffs that aren't just slow triplet strumming, and Blackthorn again does an excellent job with the drumming, keeping a basic beat and then spicing it up with tons of quick fills and double-kick runs.
Following this killer opening is Everlasting Siege of the Necrosoldiers; it starts midpaced with another great riff over a 'triumphant strut' beat with more killer double-bass work. How the hell does Blackthorn have time to sing with drumming like this? Of course it later changes to some more fast blasting, then back and forth between different tempos and feels. It's a credit to the songwriters that they can pull this off without it sounding forced.
Finally, we have Master of the Bloodfury, a real scorcher. It's very fast and riffy all the way through, until of course it hits more of those killer midpaced sections. There's even a great, chaotic guitar solo towards the end of this one (a bit buried in the mix, but effective nevertheless).
Overall, I've only got one gripe with this album (aside from the tracking slip-up I mentioned earlier, which is supposedly only on the promo discs so you probably won't have to worry about it...) - the guitars are kinda buried in the mix and have a bit of a thin sound to them, and with the bass also lacking in the mix and the drums forward you really have to crank it to get a good earful of the excellent riffing on this EP. Still, it's 14 minutes of insane black metal that leaves me wanting to hear more from this horde. Hail Satan.
© 2001 lord vic