Thrones "Day Late, Dollar Short" CD
[Southern Lord]
Thrones represents the bizarre musical vision of Joe Preston - perhaps better known for his contributions to heavy hitters such as Earth, the Melvins, Sunn, and High on Fire, among others - herein collecting a massive 19 tracks in 78 minutes, taken from rare 7"s, compilations, or unreleased sessions spanning 1994 - 2001. The tracks appear in chronological order starting off with "The Sucking", "Algol", and "Senex" 7"s, before jumping over into an array of remixes, compilation appearances, and unreleased cuts - with the split 7" with Behead the Prophet, No Lord Shall Live thrown in there, too. What does it sound like? Good question. The tracks range from one minute to seven minutes and plow through everything from thick and nasty sludge, to quirky electronic noises and wacky effects, or raging rhythmic pulses and dissonant aggression, with all sorts of strange vocal performances, a mix of live and electronic drums, and varying degrees of tangible song structure or acerbity. "The Suckling" opens on a misleading note with plenty of churning distorted bass, pulsing live percussion, and twisted vocal snarls with a few fierce fits of feedback or fucked up cutups in the arrangement, as within a few minutes you'll land on the gnarled up clean guitars and annoying vocal effects over the out of tune singing in "Algol". The seven-minute "Senex" is my favorite track by far, building itself around stuttered basslines and percussive rhythms with faintly filtered spoken vocals before caving into a crushing wall of overdriven bass that's definitely the heaviest and darkest riff on the entire disc - and what about those fucked up vocal cackles and all the twisted, discordant feedback/bends!? "Coal Sack" takes a similar road in terms of heaviness and a nasty distorted bass presence, but the tempo is much more energetic, and the vocals follow suit with some yelling as well as funky electronic undercurrents and weird pitch-shifted lines; while the awesome instrumental "Simon Legree" cranks these style up to a more rocked out swagger - but not without its obscure little twists, of course. "Valley of the Thrones", a remix, basically comes off like a dark ambient selection for the first few minutes, using minimal low-end swells and samples before instrumentation later kicks in with some biting vocal filters and oppressively muddy textures; and "The Walk" is straight dark ambient noise, using lots of delay, some shuffling midrange, and chiming bells to create a deep, hypnotic lull for four minutes straight. Among the strange little unreleased ditties are tracks like "Epicus Doomicus Bumpitus", a cheesy orchestral synth piece written as an ode to the theme song of a strange children's television show about a talking mound of grass and his earthworm buddy; and "Piano Handjob", written on a crude Yahama sequencer that used 5½" floppies. "Nostos Algos" is a killer track, so it's a shame it was never released before now, as its twisted layers of bass harmonies and rigid percussive patterns should appeal to fans of the ol' "stoner rock", though its grimy underbelly of throbbing low-end certainly adds some menace that you can't really go wrong with, too! And yeah, there are some cover songs as well. Among them: "Oracle", by Rush, and "Black Blade" from Blue Oyster Cult, the latter of which is among the more straightforward "songs" on the entire disc (even if it does top six minutes and end in a cavalcade of complete noise), losing out to the Ultravox cover, "Young Savage", which is easily the only "catchy" (and shockingly "hip" sounding) tune. Oh, there's also quick segment of The Who's "A Quick One While He's Away", intended for a never released four-way split 7" where each band would've recorded a snippet of the track. Bizarre. Since there are tons of recording sessions represented the sound quality can range in terms of overall density and warmth, so a few songs are of course a little thinner and less efficient. But I have to say, as a whole the mastering has been expertly handled to even the output volumes and keep things flowing consistently from start to finish, so... there aren't any issues with the sound quality at all. If you don't care for this material, it ain't gonna be because of the recordings, it's gonna be because this is some twisted shit that simply isn't for everyone! The packaging was handled by Stephen O'Malley and is one of his finest pieces to date. The entire affair is chock full of odd photography, odd three dimensional line graphics, psychedelic arrangements, and a consistent color scheme that uses metallic silver ink on cream backgrounds, with hints of black and white. The booklet opens from the center of the back cover to reveal a separate onecard insert that contains extensive credits for the tracks followed by succinct one-liner styled notations from Preston himself regarding many of the tunes. Great, great stuff, for sure. Like I said, this isn't for everyone, and it's a weird, disjointed disc... but I'm into it. Not all of it, mind you, but I respect its quirky innovativeness and lack of regard for anything that "matters" within the realm of music and all various scenes at large. There's definitely some cool shit here... a really unusual project, this one. (7/10)
Running time - 77:53, Tracks: 19
[Notable tracks: The Suckling, Senex, Simon Legree, The Walk, Nostos Algos]
Southern Lord Recordings - http://www.southernlord.com

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