Bandcamp Throne have been dealing in filth since 2012, and Ossarium is the sound of a band who have sharpened it to a point. The Parma outfit play blackened sludge in the caustic EyeHateGod and Buzzov·en lineage, but with enough tremolo bite and cold atmosphere that it keeps sliding toward black metal at the edges, and the six tracks here, from the opener “Morrigan” to the ten-minute closer “Psychostasia,” are riff-forward, mean and unrelenting. The gold-on-black occult engraving on the cover, skulls and nails and coiling snakes around a central flame, tells you this is sludge with ritual on its mind rather than just swamp-water nihilism. It is a genuinely nasty, well-written record.
The strength is the riffs and the sheer aggression, and even at speed the writing stays legible, which is the thing this style most often loses in the murk. “Aten” is a clear high point, an extremely dense, high-gain wall that somehow keeps precise riff definition and a knurled, growling bass driving the sub end, and “The All Father” is the best-balanced track on the record, transparent and punchy with defined low mids, unobtrusive highs and a bass that closes the bottom off cleanly. “Tortura” rides a modern, transparent separation that lets the eight minutes build properly. When Throne lock a blackened tremolo line to a sludge crawl, the effect is exactly the bleak, punishing catharsis the genre exists for.
The reservation is the master, and it is the modern-loudness problem rather than a genre-grit one. Ossarium is pushed hard, right up against the limiter, and the micro-dynamics pay for it: “Morrigan” and “Blind Agony” are compressed enough that the record has few dynamic breaths, the tremolo passages smearing slightly under the density, and “Psychostasia” builds a mighty wall-of-sound but chokes the air out of its own crowded midrange over ten minutes. There is a version of sludge where the raw, blown-out loudness is the aesthetic and earns its ugliness, and Throne are close enough to that tradition that this is not disqualifying, the aggression genuinely lands. But the songs are dynamic enough underneath that a slightly raised ceiling would let them breathe and hit harder, and the flatness is the one thing keeping a strong record from a great one.
Ossarium is a ferocious, focused, genuinely well-crafted blackened sludge record from a band who know exactly how to be unpleasant in the right way, and the writing and the ritual atmosphere lift it above the swamp-dwelling pack. It is held back only by a loudness-maximised master flattening music with more dynamic range than the mix lets you hear. For anyone who wants their sludge caustic, blackened and mean, the Primitive Man and Grief end crossed with a tremolo chill, this is well worth the wounds. Play it loud, and imagine the version with the lid off.
Blackened sludge in the caustic EyeHateGod and Buzzov·en lineage with enough tremolo bite to border on black metal, riff-forward and legible even at speed. “Aten” is a high point, an extremely dense high-gain wall that keeps precise riff definition and a knurled growling bass on the sub end, and “The All Father” is the best-balanced track, transparent and punchy with defined low mids and a clean bottom. “Tortura” rides a modern transparent separation that lets its eight minutes build. The reservation is the master: pushed hard against the limiter, the micro-dynamics pay for it, “Morrigan” and “Blind Agony” compressed enough to leave few dynamic breaths with the tremolo smearing slightly, and “Psychostasia” builds a mighty wall but chokes the air from its crowded midrange over ten minutes. Close enough to the blown-out sludge tradition that it is not disqualifying and the aggression lands, but the songs are dynamic enough underneath that a raised ceiling would let them hit harder. Ferocious and well-crafted, flattened only at the master.
Standout tracks: Aten, The All Father, Tortura
