I've been bragging about how my musical dowsing rod has gotten pretty good over the years and I don't often find myself bothering with things that wind up sucking just because I can usually predict with reasonable accuracy if something is going to appeal to me or not. Thoren kinda bucks that, because I took a gamble and rolled the dice on an instrumental progressive death metal band purely because their promo packet compared them to Blotted Science, basically the one and only band in that super specific subniche that I care for in any way. Well, it turns out that neither Alex Webster nor Ron Jarzombek play in Thoren. Instead we get a dude from Coma Cluster Void programming the drums with two randos on the strings.
The Coma Cluster Void comparison should probably tip the band's hand a bit when it comes to what they actually sound like. Gwarth II reminds me of Gorguts more than anything else. It's very dissonant and extremely chaotic, with cohesive riffs only appearing for mere seconds at a time and repeating maybe once or twice before the band flies off the rails again into total anarchy. It works for what it is, but this sort of thing struggles mightily to hold my attention. It's a whizbang backdraft that flares up super hot for a few seconds and blows you backwards but then it's pretty much over. It's punchy, I'll give it that, and the pugilistic backbone of what would otherwise be pure chaos helps keep it from being completely forgettable, but it's not bulletproof. There still aren't many sections at all that stick with you once it's all over. Moments of "Raun Raeg" and "Thaw Gur" do I guess, but that's probably because they're two of the three songs that break the three minute mark and ergo have a bit more time to adhere to the surface. Every song is made up of cacophonous riffery but the fact that most tracks are pretty short definitely means that it's all over before you even realize it began. I still can't tell you a single thing that happens in "Vex" or "Lithui", but I remember the groovy riff in "Raun Raeg" at least.
There isn't much else to say, this is a very Gorguts-y approach to brutal technical wizardry in the sense that it's very dissonant and doesn't adhere to many conventional structures, but unlike Gorguts they don't have any real hooks to keep it interesting. So it's more like Behold... the Arctopus I guess. Either way, it's hard to write, hard to play, and hard to listen to.
RATING: 30%
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