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- Bands:
THAW - Duration: 00:34:29
- Available from: 10/25/2024
- Label:
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Agony Records
Streaming not yet available
The Polish band Thaw are back on the scene, and they do so after a few years of absence from the spotlight with a new album entitled “Fading Backwards”, published by Agonia Records.
It can be noted that the name of the band has generally failed to establish itself decisively in the field of experimental metal: despite being able to boast a certain experience regarding concert activity – just think of the European tour with fellow countrymen Behemoth in 2015 or to participation in the 2018 edition of the Roadburn Festival – ours have never been definitively recognized by the relevant public.
Furthermore, the distance between the previous album “Grains” of 2017 and the new “Fading Backwards” must not have helped the visibility of the group in this sense, which however courageously steps forward again with an album that in some ways does not it deviates too much from what was previously proposed, but provides some improvements and innovations relating to its general sound.
The album is spread over six tracks with an average length of five minutes, for a full half hour of sludge, drone and black metal: we would like to say that for some compositional aspects Thaw's new work presents greater stylistic cohesion compared to his predecessor “Grains”, more oriented instead towards the guitar drone in the strict sense.
The components and aspects of the various subgenres of reference for the music proposed by the Poles are reviewed today more than ever in a cohesive and unitary way, where the insertions with an industrial and noise flavor often overlap in an organic way with the guitar textures or even reinforce the percussion directly rather than simply alternating with the typically metal sections – as happened more regularly in the previous episodes of the related discography.
A clear example of what has been described is given by the second piece “A Place Where Repetition Dwells”, where a tight and constant rhythmic pattern traced by the drums manages to accompany the listener in an interesting way through some section changes of the composition, through the addition and the progressive subtraction of sounds complementary to the percussion themselves, in a way similar in some ways to what was attempted by the Danish Plague Organ with their album “Orphan”.
Fundamental in this sense for an effective advancement of the sound is the excellent production of the album, created at Monochrome Studio: it is evident how a greater awareness of the characteristics of the necessary instrumentation and equipment has led the band to the creation of an interesting album from the point of view experientially and auditorily. For listeners more interested in the technical aspect of audio production, the new “Fading Backwards” will in this sense be a record to which one can actually dedicate some attention, given the numerous stratifications of sound to be dissected and dissected even after several listens.
However, the considerations relating to songwriting in the strict sense are partly different: although there are interesting moments from the point of view of song writing, as in the case of the final “Moral Justification Of Selfishness”, the pieces in general are relatively poorly characterized and recognizable individually, rather being part of an album that must be considered as a whole in terms of listening.
This characteristic of “Fading Backwards” should not necessarily be considered in a negative sense, where the album can be listened to entirely in a rather linear manner and without particular difficulties; however, the general lack of certain supports for the listener's memory will most likely prevent Thaw once again from moving forward in the panorama of experimental metal in a decisive way, remaining within the group of groups of interest for a niche from which however they will hardly be able to emerge.
We recommend listening to the band's new work to those who know their previous recordings in order to be able to see the stylistic evolution of our band and, more generally, to those interested in a contaminated, heavy sound that is averse to strict quotationism: this last effort will be able to arouse curiosity in this sense and offer sometimes unusual ideas.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM