Acts of War

Despite their notability as one of death metal's greats, the field of Morbid Angel worship isn't an especially crowded one. I guess it makes sense; the discrete elements that compose bands like, say, Deicide or Obituary are much more obvious and easy to replicate than Morbid Angel. That band's deliberately convoluted and twisted style of riffing and structuring is almost impossible to accurately resemble without at least something getting lost in the translation. It should come as no surprise that Throne Of Nails, as a Morbid Angel worshiping band, does not manage to accurately replicate that band's sound, but slightly more surprising is that such an unknown band probably comes closer than anyone else to it.

Throne Of Nails' sound is primarily derived from 'Covenant'-era Morbid Angel, with a blend of that album's fast and technical leanings alongside slower, more churning passages. There's certainly more 'normal' death metal in this music than Morbid Angel has ever had; a lot of the riffs are partially derived from more obvious locations like mid-era Cannibal Corpse or early Deicide. However, Throne Of Nails has at least made a legitimate attempt at wrapping their heads around Azagthoth's fiery and inexorable style of riffcraft, and manages to get fairly close sometimes; they're pretty good at using chord structures just off of normal, that diverge in unexpected directions from time to time and keeping the listener guessing. Structurally this is actually a lot more primitive and primordial than anything in Morbid Angel's catalog, probably aided by the generally short and to the point length of the tracks on 'Act Of War'.

So, in essence, what you get here is a primitive, low-rent Morbid Angel, which isn't actually as bad as it sounds. Throne Of Nails stay surprisingly fresh (though I suppose that's easy enough on a sub-half hour album). The songs are fast, built off a few basic ideas with enough variation to keep them interesting, and don't wear out their welcome with excessive repetition of themes. In addition to this, the structure of the album is very coherent and organic; these songs were clearly rehearsed time and time again by the members and it shows with how naturally and spontaneously the music unfolds. The tracks are fast, technical, and brutal without resorting to any cheap compositional tricks. All in all, it's a strong release that probably deserves more attention than from the tiny community built around the band.

Throne Of Nails plays highly derivative music, but overall it's worthwhile to the underground death metal fan. This album can be found just about anywhere at absurdly low prices, so there's no reason not to sacrifice a couple dollars for this one. It's good music that stays strong after repeated listens, which is a hell of a lot more than you can say for most in the death metal scene these days.

I first heard of Throne of Nails through my brothers friend, and I bought their demo, Ascension, which I must say wasn’t great, the worst thing on it were the vocals, but since then the vocalist has changed thankfully. I expected their album to be better, and it was. Their sound had significantly changed after a fairly big line-up change and had a more raw sound with less primitive riffs.
Although it had got better I didn’t feel it was good death metal, there are a lot better bands out there. An example of a mistake made writing these songs would be the frequent use of pinched-harmonics (those high-pitched squeals from the guitars, to those of you who don’t play). These are often used in death metal, and yeah, one every now and then is alright, but when a riff is practically all made up of these pinched harmonics you just start to dislike it. There isn’t great sound to the CD either.

I wrote this review briefly about a year ago on a forum pushing it aside with a 4/10 or something. I was planning this review all out last night and listened to the CD once more and it all seemed to come together – Matt Henderson stated in an interview that he believes an album should not only be music, but should also tell a story. This CD tells the story of Armageddon. Not very original, yes, but this one comes in a different format,

using Samarian myth, Gods and even the language is used in the lyrics. Half way through the album it hit me – Throne of Nails also portray this feeling of total fucking chaos and destruction in their music. This isn’t meant to be the average death metal sound – this is meant to be bloody heavy and it is. All those bands like Origin and Berzerker who think their music is really heavy, just by having loud, fast drums need to take a lesson from Throne of Nails’ “Acts of War” album. They layer it up with a loud growling bass guitar; crushing guitars, layer upon layer of them and furious drumming. The double-kick drumming never stops but ToN don’t rely only on the drums to create the heaviness. The music goes hand in hand with the lyrics; it goes hand in hand with the artwork of burning souls and havoc wreaking everywhere. They create the perfect sense of mayhem and carnage but with one draw back.

This may sound strange but its right – With this album, you are the fourth member of the band, you need to listen to it correctly and you have to realise that this isn’t crappy musicianship, this isn’t bad timing, this is one of the heaviest death metal bands ever, with guitars tight as a nuns cunt and guitar riffs that could only be played by elites oh and did I mention; Its fucking heavy?
Not for the trend-following sluts.
But this album isn’t all (Evil) God-like. After a while the CD does tend to lack interesting riffs and start to replicate previous tracks. It can become rather monotony – mostly towards the centre of the CD. It starts to pick up again towards the end, finagling it off with two tracks from their demo Ascension, with these riffs, different to the whole album, making it slightly more interesting. They have higher played notes which makes a change from the low, low, low guitars heard on the rest of the album. Although I have said this, there are some interesting and catchy guitar solos, not Yngwie Malmsteen stuff here, it doesn’t have to be, sometimes the most simple things sound best and they are very nice guitar solos. Another bad thing about the album would be the length; 26:50, but being such energetic stuff you cant complain.
On the whole this album is great to listen to half of it but some may not enjoy the whole CD and turn it off before they do reach the end. The new album is in the works now and if each track is as good as the better tracks on “Acts of War” we can expect one of the best, most extreme death metal albums yet.
Some good, some bad points.