I am usually not a compromise kind of guy.
If I’m in the mood for death metal, I’m going to play Cattle Decapitation, 200 Stab Wounds or something like that. If I want to listen to doom metal, I’ll go balls out for Candlemass or maybe Bell Witch or Ahab if I feel like dressing up for a funeral. Point is: I don’t like in-betweens. I like my metal to know what it wants to be and to lean into it as hard as it possibly can.
But if you’re going for a hybrid style, you need to really go for it. If you’re going for a black/death sound, you need to be as lo-fi and brutal and satanic as humanly possible. If you’re going for more of a death/doom sound, you need to be as bone-rattlinglly heavy and atmospheric like Arizona-based one man project Thorn is on his new record Evergloom.
My underwear is still reverberating from this ungodly thick and loud moment of audio violence.
Evergloom is the third release from Thorn. It’s a 10 songs, 36 minutes long, lean and mean motherfucker of an album. I am not familiar with Brennen Westermeyer’s earlier discography, but the man can channel his inner primordial demon with the best of them.
The opener Spectral Realms of Ethereal Light sets the tone for what’s about to happen to you. Slow, predatory riffs that expand like a cloud of toxic smoke, tremolo picking, a shit-ton of reverb that can create an otherworldly, cavernous feeling. Westermeyer’s vocals are barely audible. The ferocious gurgle of a monstrous presence lurking. Breaking down the elements don’t do quite justice to how they come together to create this unholy atmosphere, though. It awakens a sense of overwhelming dread inside you.
Xenolith of Slime begins with an Immolation-inspired dissonant riff and builds into another spelunking journey through your mind’s eye. It’s a much longer song, carried by dueling low-high pitched guitars that create a quite unique darkness/light type of contrast. Westermeyer also doubles growl/shrieked vocals to enhance that duality. It's a more complex and difficult song, but it has this classic prog appeal. It eschews conventional structure in order to create striking moments. That’s the good kind of prog.
The third song Hypogean Crypt is a much more compact and crunchier number that leans more into the death metal side of Thorn. Once again, the borderline inhuman growls of Brennen Westermeyer and the reverberating guitars give the song scope and emotion. There’s an emotional torment to it that isn’t present in the previous songs. An anger and heartbreak or at least it’s what the song evokes on a subcutaneous level. Evergloom only picks up steam from there. Gaze of the Seer is even more angry and in-your-face than Hypogean Crypt. Driven by a monolithic, mid-tempo, almost slam riff, it cranks up the intensity and the primordial vibrations to levels that would be uncomfortable if they weren’t so mean mug-inducing. One of the simplest songs on the record, but one of the purest, most heartfelt vocal performances by Brennan Westermeyer. Perhaps my favorite song on the entire thing.
Wastelands Dimly Lit is a straightforward death metal song reminiscent of the grandmasters of dissonant death Incantation and Immolation. It has a nice, noisy outro that frames the mood quite well. It’s somewhat of an oddball on there, but it’s a solid song. Speaking of Incantation, Phantom Noose is such a throwback to their earliest, filthiest era that it’ll put a smile on your face. Not only in the instrumentation, but the texture and the production is so gloriously mucky too. While there’s an obvious wink to his elders here, Brennen Westermeyer never compromises on the thoroughly unique and otherworldly feel of Evergloom. It’s a mutant little brother, not a ripoff.
Sapien Death Spiral is an interesting curveball that featuring blast beats, chuggy riffs and the odd spacey synth line that creates a horror movie atmosphere. It’s by far the least cavernous song on Evergloom, but it’s not even two minutes long, so it’s more of a palate cleanser than anything else.
The groovy, mid-tempo riffs Farron’s Covenant usher us back into the dinosaur lair that is Evergloom. It’s a song that explores the fun nuances of doom metal like fuzz, echo and thickness of sound. It’s one of these songs that at times doesn’t seem to know which way to lean toward, though. It’s a bit of a psychotic experience. Thanatos Basileos is another favorite of mine from the record. It’s a slower, more melodic piece that I sniffed out influenced of My Dying Bride on? With the use of the guitar and the spoken word delivery? I think I heard keyboard somewhere in the mix too, but it might have just been the melody caught in that primordial muck. The lead emotion of Evergloom is anger, but this is a jacked up sad boi anthem if I ever heard one. It’s a great song to curl up in a ball and cry to.
Last but not least, the closer (and the title song) is a sight to behold. It’s the most potent blend of death and doom metal as it goes slower and uses sad, lingering guitar notes to ram in powerful, chuggy passages. It’s, in my opinion, the best composed song on the record too. It has instinctive and catchy dynamics that would open up a circle pit just about anywhere on Earth or on whatever planet Brennen Westermeyer composed this. If the monster was looming in the shadows in the previous songs, you’re looking him in the eye here. It’s a satisfying end to the journey you’ve been taken on.
Evergloom is muscular and intense. Thorn’s mastermind Brennen Westermeyer indulges in all the proper excesses to make his own hybrid blend of death and doom metal stand out. It indulges sometimes a little in the reverb and the mucky production for my own taste as it seems to be needlessly guarding the music from being properly heard, but the ratio is good more often than not. Thorn is something very precise, but it knows what it is and it is great monster music. Whether you’re channeling your inner demon or running away from it, it’s a great soundtrack to go along.
