Phoenix, Arizona’s Thorn, in spite of having a ridiculously generic name,1 has its trademark sound down to a science. Featuring a blasting and impenetrable wall of death metal, as cavernous as Cruciamentum and as sticky as Chthe’ilist, the sound has transferred neatly across the act’s three full-lengths – the only issue is just how fast to play it. While the sound is devastatingly dense and chunky as yesterday’s milk, debut Crawling Worship featured doom tempos galore, while 2022’s Yawning Depths blended the grime neatly with swirling gunk at higher speeds a la sole member Brennen Westermeyer’s other project Fluids. While undeniably “Thorn,” the overall quality is at stake, nearly ubiquitously shrouded in a dense murk that makes it difficult to ascertain. Will Evergloom break through the darkness and achieve greatness?
While deathgrind emerges from the fray occasionally, Thorn’s preferred attack features megaton doom aligning with dissonant leads and a more atmospheric feel. Don’t get me wrong, Evergloom is still as punishing as ever, but this fusion of density and atmosphere with a hint of dissonance leads to some truly otherworldly environs. Opener “Spectral Realms of Ethereal Light” offers the baseline of Thorn’s sound with gravitas and menace, a creeping bruiser of dense riffs and haunting leads, which crescendos into deathgrind insanity across the album’s thirty-seven minutes. Ultimately, while the complaints between Evergloom and Yawning Depths are largely the same, with thick muck and inconsistent songwriting, Evergloom is a steady grower.
There are two manifestations of Thorn’s death metal this go around: the doom and the grind. The first half resides neatly within the former, a palette set by the opener. Worm-esque dirge “Xenolith of Slime” is neatly composed with undercurrents of groove while “Hypogean Crypt” features a smooth transition between chunky riffs and sprawling atmosphere. Tension begins to grow from there, as the chunky “Gaze of the Seer” features tangible pulsing energy until the nearly punky “Wastelands Dimly Lit” kicks in the door with a steel-toed boot of grindy urgency. “Phantom Noose” and the closing title track are solid fusions of the two sounds, featuring doom pace encasing groove and palatable grind energy while ominous atmospherics swell alongside. Thorn’s trademark colossal sound is better exemplified here than in its predecessor, a density that never feels lacking regardless of the sound. While the inconsistencies and mix hindered former incarnations, Evergloom’s cavernous and chunky approach is never forsaken, bolstered by Westermeyer’s vicious roars.
In spite of its better quality, the complaints about Evergloom are the same as Yawning Depths: mix and songwriting. Thorn’s album-long dynamic is puzzling because while the first act features more doom-centered density and grind energy begins to seep across as the songs progress, the transitions between the two are not firmly established to justify how different the menacing doom pummel of “Xenolith of Slime” and the intense brevity of “Sapien Death Spiral” are, for example. The mix does not help this case much, furthermore, as the seemingly brickwalled riffs quickly lose impact and require multiple listens to discern between tracks. While the menace and intensity are best exemplified in “Phantom Noose” or “Evergloom,” tracks like “Hypogean Crypt,” “Sapien Death Spiral,” and “Farron’s Covenant” are extremely forgettable in the shadow of the mix’s colossus, while interlude “Thanatos Basileos” is useless due to its short runtime and sudden atmospheric focus. Even highlights like “Xenolith of Slime,” “Gaze of the Seer,” and “Evergloom” feel too long, losing impact by respective conclusions.
Thorn is Thorn, and Evergloom makes no case for why you should love them. It features the same hallmarks as its predecessor: tantalizing atmosphere, grind, and doom atop its cavernous death metal foundation. Just like Yawning Depths, too, there is very little that sticks. It’s scattershot and haphazard in its songwriting, yet thanks to its relentlessly thick production, you’d be forgiven for seeing Evergloom as just one enormously monotonous death metal track. It has its moments and its trademark is firmly set, but Evergloom should have been called Ever-thiccc.
Rating: 2.5/5.0
DR: 11 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Transcending Obscurity Records
Website: thornx.bandcamp.com
Releases Worldwide: September 15th, 2023
