Three Weeds from the Same Root

Two big-ass red flags flutter all over this album. First, you may be put off by the open anti-Semitism. Three Weeds refers to the Abramaic religions. Well, in this case you can quite convincingly (with one exception) tell yourself "Oh, he's just anti-religious, that's okay." But getting past that obstacle, there's the real flaw of this album: it's boring! Two-thirds of it sound, vocally and instrumentally, utterly indistinguishable from each other. The final three songs are different-ish from that bunch, but cookie-cutter in their own right.

Capricornus, whom you may recognize from his early days drumming with Polish black metal kingpins Graveland, does everything other than drum on this album. He sings, slowly and monotonously, in a deep throaty grunt like Thurios from the Ukrainian band Hate Forest. Rarely if ever does he vary his tone. Every line is delivered in three- or four- syllable spurts, heavily laden with a constant echo. This could have been a cool effect, but just comes across as lazily trying to fill up time.

Even the subject matter is pretty bland, not even really reaching for the dumb shock points of daring to be racist. There is one line about "spitting in the face of Adam's race", which is just puerile and terrible. And another saying "When millions gladly live in the chains of God... do we need to accept this human rights shit?" It's nothing really different from any other Satanic-elitist attack on religion(s). No discernible attempt to replace the false faiths with praise for paganism. It's really just the same "I'm not part of this weak herd" and "believing in something... what only exists in your mind" crap that edgy atheists have sung about countless times.

Sure, all that's a disappointment. But the major failure of Three Weeds is the near-total lack of instrumental variation. There are six songs which all contain pretty well the same slow-to-mid paced Gorgoroth reject riff. At least it has a thick, weighty recording quality, so y'know, huzzah for that. "Serpents Bite Their Allies", "Organized Illusion" and "The Day Has Come" spice up the plodding with some faster tremolos. Though this sets these songs apart from the first six, it also just sets them up as a second cluster of hopelessly samey songs. Almost as if Capricornus wanted to make a separate EP, but realized this shit's still close enough to the rest of Three Weeds to just tack them on at the end.

Drums are almost entirely just there because a band must have drums. Could easily have been programmed up, as there isn't a single moment where they do anything surprising or remotely challenging. And really, the dull-ass repetitive guitar does enough of the timekeeping work, so drums aren't even needed for that purpose. The last couple songs have a few phrases of blastbeats; but when coupled with the slow vocals and more of the same, albeit tremolized, lackadaisical riffs, they don't add much at all.

This album was released after Thor's Hammer had called it quits in 2003. Good decision, although Capricornus would have been even wiser to just sit on this collection. Maybe release one or two as an EP. For making a full-length, it's abundantly clear that the old well of ideas had stopped giving milk.

This album by Thor's Hammer is patently influenced by one album : De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas. At least in the guitars. And while there is some enjoyment I still find on this release, I would be dishonest if I told you what is found on Three Weeds is original black metal. If you have listened to enough from the genre, you may at first think too many other bands sound like this until you listen a little closer for some of the tiny things that it does emulate better than most. By the standards of the clandestine Temple of the Fullmoon scene for which Capricornus was a member of, this album can be a little disappointing but somehow has really grown on me anyway.

While this record certainly is not without a number of flaws-an overall sense of complacency being among them-once I accepted those, I could like it as a raw sounding black metal work that has alot of experience behind the proceeding. The murky production gives the illusion of black metal vocals when they are actually death metal type grunt-ish ones as I listen close enough and they remind me a tad bit of David Vincent. Alot of "raw" black metal bands like Antaeus use the modified death for black vocal style and I see this being an accurate comparison on this album in those particular aspects. But ,yes, mostly Mayhem is the predominate influence on this record without a doubt. There is minimal variation in the riffs and structure from song to song as it sounds as though Capricornus decided to bestow an overall Pagan Fears/Freezing Moon motif throughout it all. Interestingly though, I notice the riff playing is more in line with Blasphemer's work with that band as I gleaned from the tremolo picking style that rings out with a more sonic oomph than Euronymous'. There's no mistaking the atmosphere will remind you of DMDS though. However, the drums seem unusually low in the mix. I'm not sure why this is but I suspect it's to cover up for his inability to pull off proficient blast beats in kind. If so, I'll let it slide because he creates the cavernous atmosphere so well that it works good enough when the hits do rear up at the right points though again, not much variety to be found.

Another thing I am critical about on this album is the short length relative to all its tracks. It's painfully uneven. The thirty-one or so minute(CD version) running time is in itself hardly unusual for any record. Usually when someone says a record is too short that can be construed as a compliment to mean you enjoyed it and left you wanting more. The difference here for me was that it felt too short as in disjointed and lazy. However, even as raw black sounding as this album is, it isn't particularly fast paced. If this was a Marduk blitzfest, then I would say the running time is about expected. The whole album is galloping upper mid-paced. There are eight tracks. One of them is 11 minutes. A couple others are around six with the rest about three and a half minutes average. On paper, that doesn't seem much to gripe over either but this is a full length album with all the songs sticking to one conservative orthodox black metal sound so that's why those shorter songs against the longer ones felt uneven. I don't have a problem with demo quality feel. It's that Three Weeds From the Same Root seems to lack a confidence in a few of its tracks.

No better example of this than the opening title track. I refer to it as the "flash" track: Very dark and intimidating mid-paced distorted riffs unrelenting in it's approach to grab me along with steady blasts attacking. I'm giving you a live feed report right now: I'm starting to really like this..oh yeah, catching my fancy now; sink, line and..whoop, it's over already. Just like that. It's a song that has a very good beginning, a middle that picks up great Mayhem-ic momentum and seems well on the way to hypnotizing but absolutely NO ending. The song is essentially just a beginning and a middle. It's under two and a half minutes. This is very frustrating. Even more so when I consider that no matter how many times I play the album through, I can never quite remember what I just heard by the time the next track comes in. I'm not talking about some goregrind or speed metal track here, guys. It's very odd when a song can make me feel like Guy Pearce in Memento.

The best songs on this recording is The Law of the Wave and The Blind Searchers. Both of them are the longest among the rest of the album. Again, nothing too original for black metal-I want to be clear on that-but they are the best done in that they apply dissonant rhythms and epic layering as well as they are good and long as should be to immerse in a medieval atmosphere. J Ch. is the better of the short tracks and employs energetic tremolo picking where the speed justifies the shorter length this time around as it concludes with a death-ly fade. Serpents Bite Their Allies and The Day Has Come sounded too alike from each other. It's with those that give Three Weeds more of a demo feel than a full-length album. I really wish the band would have put a little more effort and time into sculpting out a consistent and workable track listing because Capricornus does a fine job with those several good songs and it's too bad the rest is done in by apathy.

I can call myself a slight fan of Graveland, but in no way does Thor’s Hammer get a bit of respect from me. Regardless of the NS natter, I still have yet to find anything impressive musically. From what I’ve seen, it seems as though more people back this band up just because of their ideals and Capricornus having that one blood tie to Graveland’s Darken. Otherwise, there really isn’t anything here to see, care about, or hold a rally over. Put the robes away, Klansmen, you guys aren’t invited, either.

The first sound that the listener is hit by must be a swarm of locusts that buzz and hover like it’s the apocalypse. The riff sounds like some diabolical shit from Deströyer 666 (“I Am The Wargod”), but that’s about the closest you’ll ever be reminded of them with this song. This riff is pretty much the only one in this intro track, and the rest of the album doesn’t really have much variety when it comes to riffs, either. The production makes the guitar tone muddy and antique, molding it together with little bass individuality while drowning out the drums by a wide margin. You can have a bet with a friend trying to figure when the hell the drum bass is used, but while that’s going on your ears will contract because the snares are hollow as a ceramic pot and go in and out of the average human’s frequency range.

Capricornus growls sparingly like a dog in a ravine, with an echo that lasts almost as long as his personal output. You can hardly ever make out what he’s saying, but that’s not really an issue with black metal. All that time writing those lyrics and you never get to hear him say any of it with a sermonizing, soulful voice. Most of the time it just sounds like he’s clearing his voice, but again it all has an echo to it like he’s in a cave – nothing cut-throat or morbid about them, though. With the mucky guitar tone I’m always reminded of Darkthrone after the classic black metal albums, but with less gusto, racial crap, and humor.

Some creepy moments occur with the keyboard splattered about. Without turning this repetitive black metal into a nursery school playground, the keys are able to dab the aged atmosphere back into days of yore. Their roles are brief and don’t go beyond that, but it’s a nice addition that’s like adding graffiti to a garbage can. Nonetheless, they can’t help the meandering guitars from going on and on without any real diversity.

This album is basically Deströyer 666’s Phoenix Rising with a flatter production job, lamer execution, and some white pride / NS sprinkled on it. Most of these (primarily tremolo) riffs are similar to the ones on that album, but these riffs hardly have any strength and aren’t properly used except as stumbling grumbles for atmosphere. Don’t be fooled by anyone else thinking that this is some sort of divine recording that serves as a middle finger to all opponents of white pride in any form. Music speaks louder than words, and Thor’s Hammer fails in both departments.