At this period of the year, Portugal, and its westernmost promontories, can be quite oppressive. Not politically speaking – albeit we’ve been treading in a suave-Pax-Romana turmoil for the last five years -, but those who have walked under our June’s red-as-the-center-of-the-Japanese-flag sun can definitely taste how authoritative our summer really is.
Thus, listening to Thurm while sauntering around can become a defining paradoxical first-hand experience. Since the very beginning, this record proves itself to be glacial. In its innards, coldness is what you see, what you get and what you will be left with. This hails from one specific component: the guitar. Even if you’re not particularly aware of how black metal sounds, particularly its 90s Norwegian atmospheric branches, Thurm can give you some firm glances by relentlessly exploring the tremolo picking, mixing it with some top-notch tempo dynamics. “Enough”, for instance, turns out to be a faultless example of how black metal can be luffed by hardcore’s framework. Throughout its six minutes of length, there’s this smoldering sense of darkness plentitude. Guided by a lurid cusp ahead, built on Cascadian BM, post-metal taffeta, blooming feedback and hardcore’s steady gravel.
Throwing around names and comparisons is often a futile exercise, but so it is any review for that matter. Therefore, try perhaps to picture a much leaner and straight-to-the-point enact of what Altar Of Plagues have been doing, not as experimental but definitely similar in the want to embrace all kinds of dark. Or conceptualize a much more dominant rendition of Oathbreaker, reaching galleon-levels in relation to the Belgium. And, in case you are an enthusiast of Celeste and Hexis‘ sludgy syncopated patterns, the track “Modern Slavery Exists” will be nothing but captivating.
Justice for Anna as well, the former singer of Amber, who delivers a quintessential vocal performance fiercely inspired by topics such as female genital mutilation or modernized forms of totalitarianism. First-class.