This Swedish trio has been compared to Conan, but I detect a slightly more psychedelic sensibility on this, the second album from Throneless. For one thing, the songs are all rather lengthy—the four songs here span 40 minutes, with the shortest one clocking in at six and a half.
“Born in Vain” opens the album on a gloomy note, with heavy downtuned riffs smothering airier, high-register vocals somewhat similar to Scott Kelly. This tune bashes and pounds away for nearly 10 minutes, slowing things to a lightly distorted crawl around the 2:30 mark, before gradually bringing back the super-slow-mo sludge. The Conan comparisons are fairly apt on this track.
“Cycles” is notably lighter from the get-go, taking the melodic, minimalist approach to doom favoured by Warning. They do get thicker and heavier around two and a half minutes in, but it’s still not quite the sludgy rumble of the opening track. And its first half is instrumental—the vocals don’t come in until just shy of five minutes in. “Senseless” might be the closest this band comes to traditional doom (à la early Electric Wizard), although that lumbering low end adds a strong sludge component.
The album culminates in 14-minute epic “Oracle,” whose sweeping, extended intro borders on drone, though it’s not long before we’re back into the slow ‘n heavy doom. Again, this track is largely instrumental, with the vocals not coming in until the eight-minute mark, and the whole thing coming off as a kind of cross between Sleep and Conan—nothing wrong with that at all!
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