Though it may not play host to snow-capped mountains and ancient, dense fir forests, Australia has still managed to export some absurdly cold and merciless black metal over the years. Melbourne-based collective Thrall made their return to the recording studio for the first time in nearly seven years in order to bring us their new full length album, Schisms.
Since releasing their critically lauded album Aokigahara Jukai, Thrall appeared to all but vanish, save for two small releases in 2015, the single ‘Our Sufferance Howls On The Wind’ and a three track EP entitled Entropy. Now in 2022, Thrall are back with an enlivened line-up featuring members of Gatecreeper, Noose Rot, Wood of Suicides, Slothferatu and Mortuum – to name but a few. Picking up where they left off, Thrall have set out to expand their musical horizons with Schisms in the hope of cementing themselves as one of the most interesting and creative bands in the Australian extreme metal scene.
Much like Mary Shelley’s modern Prometheus, Thrall appear to have played the part of one Dr. Frankenstein by cherry picking the components they require but instead of creating something pure and ‘trve’, they’ve instead created a disappointing monster. Title track and opener ‘Schisms’ pretty much lays down the blueprint of what to expect from the entire album with its slightly thrashy, doom-laden riffing, before progressing into something much more typically black metal sounding. The addition of vocalist and guitarist Tøm Vøld’s weary and desperate howls add unforgiving tones but sadly, they’re all too often interrupted…
Guitar solos. Fine, at times they’re a welcome break, suit their surroundings and bring a whole new dimension to a song, but Schisms is littered with the bastards and it’s incredibly distracting. Whilst the opening track has an ill-fitting and slightly random guitar solo plonked into the middle of the song, ‘Tyrant’ and ‘Nihil’ both make use of some outrageous and painfully long axe wielding. ‘Epoch’ however, a song that initially had the potential to be one of the most interesting tracks on the album, is spoilt with yet another guitar-wanking solo. Yet his time it’s like enduring the utter snooze-fest you’d find on any bloated Iron Maiden or Metallica record, it’s saving grace being that once it’s over neither Bruce Dickinson or James Hetfield are anywhere to be seen or heard.
The most exciting part of the album comes in the form of ‘Hollow’ which introduces the first use of post-rock-y elements into the mix, bringing in clanging guitars, heavily reverbed vocals and ambience. It’s just a shame it’s so short-lived, as much like the rest of Schisms it feels incredibly uninspired, repetitious and tedious. Throw in some fairly obvious Satyricon worship, a few ambient wind samples and some haunting piano notes to close out the album, and the melting pot of mis-matched clichés that is Schisms finally overflows, spewing forth its drab, unstimulating ear bile.
Whilst Schisms may well have achieved what it set out to do with the experimentation of new ideas, it’s unfortunately failed to make for a captivating listening experience. Thrall have, to paraphrase Shelley, ‘allowed their thoughts, unchecked by reason to ramble in the fields of paradise’ but instead of ‘amiable and lovely creatures’, they’ve found only ‘gloom’.