ALBUM REVIEW: Eradication – Archaic Thorn
Blending a harsh, murky sound with a polished approach to song writing, Germany’s ARCHAIC THORN are one of those bands that firmly plant their foot within death metal’s old school without straying into the realms of parody. Whereas many bands with a pronounced influence from the genres classics tend to match the primitive production with an equally primitive style, this band imbues their music with tight and technically proficient musicianship that makes them stand out from the pack for all the right reasons. Their debut full-length, Eradication, comes just under five years since last release, 2015’s brilliant In Desolate Magnificence, and sees the band’s sound at arguably its leanest, most focused and indeed best to date.
Into Endless Black Sky is a great opener, with its ominous intro giving way to a dark piece of blackened death metal with particularly monstrous drumming and powerful hooks building a massive sound with a few impressive, chaotic moments coming in during the songs second half. The coarse vocals complement the primitive sound, adding a grating edge to proceedings. Thoughtless Eradication takes the rabid nature of the previous song, adding razor sharp tremolos and intricate drumming, showing off the band’s musicianship, without sacrificing any of the intensity, making for a technical and energised sound.
Cleansing Fire is even more feral, with ravenous guitars, frenzied drums and harsh, roaring vocals combining to create a dizzying maelstrom of bestial noise, punctuated with demented melodic flourishes that counterpoint the savage approach of this relatively short song. Regression opts for a chunkier, more groove laden style that contributes a muscular, aggressive side to the music that works well with the slower pace, with a few dizzying, bellicose sections linking this song with the dissonance that has marked the albums sound.
Deathmarch follows a similar formula, with robust rhythms taking centre stage, along with magnificent drumming that outstrips everything that has come before it. The frenetic side of the bands sound is certainly on full display, but this is a track around around its fantastic rhythm section first and foremost. Extraterrestrial Blood has a meaty, rhythmic undercurrent that works extremely well, coupled with excellent, disjointed leads lending this track a primal intensity. It’s a thunderous juggernaut with beefy, bellicose vocals to match, with the sound ducking and weaving between ARCHAIC THORN‘s groove-laden and discordant sides really well, making for a diverse and engrossing number.
Impure Desolation takes a more methodical and dramatic approach to the song writing, stripping back the unbridled brutality of the previous songs and adopting a more foreboding feel, slowly building and allowing the lead guitar work to really carry the music. It’s a monolithic offering, that manages to fill its eight and a half minutes with as many impressive ideas as it can. It’s a good change of pace that departs significantly from the rest of the album, and serves as a bleakly bombastic conclusion to an unflinchingly heavy record.
One of the main things to take away from Eradication is the obvious musical talent and chemistry between all members of ARCHAIC THORN. The vast majority of this album is locked into an exceptionally tight and lean sound, with lots of intricate moments and bursts of technical brilliance that it’s very hard not to admire. Although the band clearly takes their musical cues from classic death metal, with the rugged and slightly raw production giving this whole album a sepulchral feel throughout, there’s little pockets of black and thrash metal peppered liberally amongst the bulk of the music on offer, and it gives the band a fantastic sound that is actually a lot more eclectic than it may first appear. Eradication has been more than worth the decade long wait, and with more music like this in the future, ARCHAIC THORN could become a force to be reckoned with within death metal.
Rating: 8/10
Eradication is out now via Into Endless Chaos Records.