Anyone hoping for a classic or revitalizing take on the black metal genre should take note of the path taken by the acknowledged co-creator of its infamous guitar style: Snorre “Blackthorn” Ruch. On the debut album of his creation Thorns (delayed almost a decade by his misfortune presence at the scene of Euronymous’s murder), he finds himself aided by some of the genre’s most renowned musicians who, through their own bands, shared a similar direction themselves. Although a careful listen reveals that Thorns S/T was able to surpass above mentioned bands on many levels, it is also immediately obvious that it is indeed part of the unfortunate route into industrial/electronics taken by many in the “extreme metal” genre during the early 2000s. Much like their countrymen in Emperor, Enslaved, and Arcturus, Thorns found themselves on a strange journey that an old issue of Terrorizer magazine accurately described as “The Weirding of Norway.”
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