Throneum / Leichengott - Trupi Jad

THRONEUM / LEICHENGOTT - Trupi Jad (Societas Oculorum Arcanorum - CD EP 2011)

I wasn’t sure whether I’ll ever get a chance to purchase this split EP or not, as with such big number of great releases that come up every month the possibility of buying a 10 minute short CD is nothing what would be a priority of my shopping list. And that’s despite the fact how much I like Throneum’s music. And maybe I was right when I made the decision of postponing the purchase of “Trupi Jad”, as suddenly Tom (a’ka The Great Executor) sent me a copy of it, what I welcomed with opened arms and horns shaped hands, screaming in lust. Hell yeah, finally! I was quite curious about this split also for the reason of the second band, with which Throneum shares “Trupi Jad”. I just didn’t have a chance to listen to Leichengott’s music before and completely missed their “Cyrograf” CD, so I was pretty curious what this band is like. But first I must say I love the title of this split CD. Of course “Trupi Jad” (“corpse poison”) was one of the very first songs of Vader (!!!), so it kind of makes sense to honour the old days of this band. But of course “trupi jad” are also ptomaines, which are toxic bacteria that grow in the rotting bodies (supposedly they’re lethal to people). That sounds deadly serious, doesn’t it?

Of course I’m pretty sure that you all know what to expect from Throneum and if not, then you’re a gay wanker. These guys are the heralds of the true old school death / black / thrash metal and purveyors of some of the most cruel and obscure sounds, which this country has ever spawned (but I guess this may also be related to the whole metal underground, globally). “One Upon the Throne” is just a classic track for this band, at times it is fast like possessed and then there may be more thrash metal influenced riff, which is just damn great (and at one fragment everything slows down to almost doomy tempos – so this song really embraces everything we all like in good old morbid metal). I really like how this song sounds – very filthy and raw production, but very effective. Also Tom’s voice is great, almost black metal kind of scream, but very good. But after 5 minutes Leichengott begins with their track called “Battle Horns”. Hmm, I’m surprised how well produced this song is – the sound is really clean, at least in the underground black metal standards, but it’s still very aggressive and heavy, bassy sound. “Battle Horns” hasn’t really impressed me much, but it’s an OK piece of black metal. The opening riff is quite surprising, as it’s almost like Polish Kat from the old days, only played and recorded in the black metal way. But that quickly evolves into a cacophonic wall of fast riffing and possessed, noisy guitar soloing, which do not really impresses me much. As I said, Leichengott’s song is rather mediocre and far from excellence, but it’s not dull either, so I guess I still want to listen to “Cyrograf” one day.

Final rate: 70/100