Throneum - Oh Death... Oh Death... Determinate, Preach and Lead Us Astray...

THRONEUM - Oh Death... Oh Death... Determinate, Preach and Lead Us Astray... (GODZ OV WAR - CD 2020)

I've been following Throneum ever since they started as Throne with "Beyond the Numbers and Creatures" demo. And that was 20 years ago already. For many years I tried to get every piece of vinyl they unleashed - every 12", full length, split... Everything. That was up to "Death Throne Entities" I think, when I started to feel really tired with Throneum music. For me "CACOMethamorphosen" was a nail in the coffin. This EP was horrible. Since then Throneum released three more albums and more splits, but I’ve only heard maybe couple of songs from them, which weren't that interesting, I lost my interest completely. I believed that I buried this band forever, but meanwhile Godz Ov War released another album, called "Oh Death... Oh Death... Determinate, Preach and Lead Us Astray..." and gave me a chance to listen to it. I am happy that I got this opportunity, because this album sounds very, very interesting and intriguing. More so, I like it a lot. 

I have to say that after the first spin of "Oh Death..." I was surprised, almost shocked for what I’ve heard, because Throneum really changed, really developed and nowadays they sound very different when compared to such "Deathcult Conspiracy". It would be hard to even recognize or guess that it's Throneum, such a drastic change and progression (such a hated word haha) happened in their music. But after few spins of this album, I had to say that there’s a method in this madness, oh yeah, and if you know Tom, Throneum’s leader, then all these changes do make sense. 

On one hand, Throneum music is still strongly influenced by the most archaic, savage and primeval extreme metal bands, from 80's and early 90's, when black, death or thrash metal bands were very connected. There's still a lot of that ferocity, insane aggression, chaotic sounds and just obscure, morbid metal of death on "Oh Death...", with all these sick vomits from Tom that characterized this band since forever. Just listen to the opening minutes of "Delta: Self-Appointed-Grandeur". But what's going on later in that song? What the fuck? Some clean guitar tones, female vocals?? So many atmospheric parts that I would never think Throneum would dare to ever use?! You need to understand that this band was always characterized by the most cruel and chaotic sounding death / black metal. I don’t remember if they ever even had an intro! So, I would never expect to hear all these atmospheric parts from them, not to mention female vocals. But here they are! 

On "Oh Death..." you'll find many influences from the old black metal scene, like from the Greek scene for instance, which is why there are also keyboards, different vocals, some epic, more melodic parts, even doomy riffs. This is where the foundation for all that atmospheric music lies. More so, songs are insanely long, they go for ten or even fifteen minutes long (“Alpha: Soulside-Space-Stream") - there are three proper tracks and three shorter instrumental interludes (played on piano for instance), so that can also give you an idea how weirdly and unconventionally composed this album is and how much more progressive and varied it is. Within each of these three proper tracks you’ll find many different “parts” / “layers”, where the band can change from the harshest, barbaric and obscure death / black metal to atmospheric, psychedelic black metal. “Alpha: Soulside-Space-Stream" is the best example, as this song is like a 15 minutes long journey into the darkest and most horrifying abyss. 

It does take time to get used to this black metal style, as well as to the low fi production, where the music, even vocals, sound slightly thin in the beginning. Only later, when you listen to it for a longer while, it starts to make some more sense and personally I really felt like the atmosphere of this album started to devour me. There may be some dull fragments, but they are very few. Most of the music on “Oh Death...” impressed me fully and quickly arose to one of this year’s favourites. I have to write this again – I did not expect to hear such music from Throneum, knowing their early albums or EPs. I would never expect them to get so close to “progressive” black metal, especially when the music keeps that barbaric and primitive feel. But they did it. Even the red colouring of the booklet is something unusual, as before that they mostly had black / white artwork on their albums. So many surprises, but it’s a positive thing and huge refreshment of their style. I am just happy that this band again managed to convince me to their music. 

Standout tracks: “Alpha: Soulside-Space-Stream" 

Verdict: 80/100