In a day and age when it
gets harder and harder for bands to stand out - the reasons are aplenty so I
won’t even attempt to touch upon that here - it is so pleasing and satisfying
when a new troupe comes along who pushes the boundaries. Maryland’s Thonian Horde are not reinventing
the wheel but what they do is still fantastic. The furious mix of black metal
and diesel infused TNT-charged rock’n’roll and a pinch of death metal they
unleash is damned good in all aspects. And that’s the band’s winning touch. The
song writing is great, the playing is even better and they seem to have a
fucking blast belting out their songs. This is, within any genre, what
separates great music from decent material.
There are 9 tracks on offer here, all of which send me into a frenzy. The furiosity of opener ‘Black Cloud’ which comes at you 200mph sets things perfectly. ‘Destiny Forsaken’ is an amazing homage musically to early death metal with hints of the undisputed kings The Crown. Frenzied buzzsaw guitars kick off ‘Torments Of A Deity’ and bestial black metal spews out of the speakers with some awesome rock’n’roll breaks in the chorus. Neck pain, you hear! ‘From The Ashes Of Angels’ is a short instrumental bridge leading into ‘Darkest Night’s Shadow’. Slow, yet chaotic at first, it gradually builds up and simply annihilates. Brutal the way black’n’roll should be.
‘Raven’s Eye’ is one of only two “proper”, in lack of better
words, black metal compositions on the album. Full onslaught from the get-go
and the furiosity only increases and is so palpable you can cut it with a
knife. The title track, ‘Thonian Horde’
follows and is subsequently the second “proper” BM song and picks up right
where ‘Raven’s Eye left off. After a
slow eerie start, hell hath no fury comes at you with no mercy at hand.
Basically a bass guitar/ guitar dedication to Jon Nödtveidt, ‘Fathoms’ is another beautiful instrumental
piece which leads into the last songs, ‘Psychonaut’.
In-yer-face, this is an ass-kicker if there ever was one. Neck-breaking to
the core this is the way to go to close out an album!
What is left to say about this debut? Not much else than I absolutely love it! There’s so much energy, enthusiasm, excellent musicianship and pure elation emanating from these guys. And this is what I love in any band. Do your best and love what you do and the end result will be like ‘Thonian Horde’. Personally I’ve grown quite weary of death metal and black metal, having grown up on the first wave the current batch of bands are pretty boring, to say the least. So when this band came around a new found interest for those styles reappeared and I, for one, can’t complain because, quite frankly, I’ve missed that era deeply. Thonian Horde has set the way of what I hope will become a new dawn, a time for this kind of music again.
-Swedebeast
