Band:	Thra
Album:	Forged In Chaotic Spew
Style:	Blackened death metal, Sludge metal
Release date:	July 2023

01. Flame Lurker
02. Fracture
03. Terror Vessel Pt. 1
04. Drag
05. Blistering Eternity
06. Vesuvian
07. Primordial Engorgement
08. Cosmic Scourge
09. Terror Vessel Pt. 2

‘Forged in spew’ probably appears on fewer dating profiles than several other ‘forged in...’ statements; however, it’s very fitting for the title of a sludge metal band’s debut album.

I’ve had my eye on Thra since mid-2021, when their EP Clairvoyant appeared in Clandestine Cuts; it was one of the relatively few instances where my pick for the best release in an edition was not an EP or demo that I had written about myself (if anything, I seem to have liked Clairvoyant even more than Radu, the person who did review it). Clairvoyant was the kind of release that felt first and foremost a part of the sludge metal scene, but which also had other elements in its DNA that highlighted just how close sludge can resemble more extreme metal styles such as death or black metal. With their debut full-length, Thra unleash a chaotic spew that further demonstrates the extremity of sludge.

The extremity in question is probably not too much of a surprise based on the artwork, which has a definite death metal feel to it. Listen to “Primordial Engorgement” in isolation, and the gurgling growls, buzzsaw riffs and cavernous production are taken right out of the old school death metal playbook; sure, there’s something to the slower, chuggier bits of the song that arguably owe more to sludge, but Thra aren’t shy in exhibiting their death metal influences, and in doing so add a bit of fire and venom to an already intimidating sludge musical base.

Thra can still sound fairly monstruous even when the death metal takes a back seat, however. “Fracture” is a vicious mid-tempo stomper, the riffs uglifying the dirge-like pounding from the measured underlying rhythm by weaving dissonance and tremolo into the relentless chugs, while “Drag” opts for a rowdier approach while still exhibiting a real nastiness in its slower passages. On a song such as the opener “Flame Lurker” (a carry-over from an earlier EP), Thra spill over into blackened sludge, the dissonant tremolo riffing adding a real meanness to the dark atmospheric foundation built by the drums. There’s also a contorted violence to some riffs here that embraces the uncompromising abrasion that has helped bands such as Conjurer to thrive in recent years.

Clairvoyant was noteworthy in featuring a 12-minute song as its title track; Thra don’t threaten to reach such levels of excess here, but there are longer tracks, such as the aforementioned “Primordial Engagement” and “Blistering Eternity”, the record’s longest cut at 7 and a half minutes. This song brings together the different facets of Forged In Chaotic Spew, with trudges through sonic quagmires, assaults of infernal fury, and even a mid-song detour into more atmospheric material, the band taking a minute to breathe by focusing on ominous clean guitars. This mid-song break nicely mixes things up; with the “Terror Vessel” and “Vesuvian” dark ambient/noise interludes, Thra introduce changes of pace across the record, but this particular move towards a more subtle, muted tone within the confines of a song is one that adds a satisfying change of direction, and is something that Thra might do well to explore further on subsequent releases.

Forged In Chaotic Spew isn’t the release of a band that’s the finished article just yet; one might argue that Thra still haven’t entirely worked out how much they want those old school death metal influences to permeate their sound, with the bulk of the relevant material found on only a couple of tracks, and the mid-song break I enjoy in “Blistering Eternity” is a bit of a one-off occurrence. Still, this is a solid debut from a group eager to plunge to the vile depths of one of metal’s more misanthropic styles and make it even nastier.