THÅRN
January 4, 2022| Dan Hillier |FEATURES
“Writing music is a lot about conditioning the listener. Post-metal is a lot about that” – Introducing THÅRN
Initially forming under the looming shadow of global lockdowns, it would have been easy for post-metal newcomers THÅRN to pack it in even before making their first move. However, to do so would be against their core value of perseverance.
Consisting of Luke Booth (We Never Learned To Live, ex-Human Futures) on bass/vocals and Jérôme Barré (Finis Omnivum, Screensaver) on guitar and again vocals, THÅRN is seemingly the product of two distinctive things. Firstly, they’re a result of the ever beginning European post-metal scene, being cut from the cloth first weaved by acts such as Cult Of Luna, Amenra and Year Of No Light. Secondly, and perhaps more noticeably, they’re a band born forth from negativity, misery and anguish.
Such qualities are often core characteristics within the genre of post-metal, but what differentiates THÅRN from their scene contemporaries is how they manifest such emotion. Within their work, iron clad post-metal is compounded with shades of post-hardcore, sludge and black metal; motifs reminiscent of bands such as Birds In Row, Ghost Bath and Kowloon Walled City smoothly combine to create a sound that is both cerebral and nuanced. Whilst their two track 2020 debut I tentatively hinted at this dexterity, it’s their latest record Collisions that truly showcase it in a way that’s patient, textured – and at times – apocalyptic.
Produced by Joe Clayton (Pijn, Leeched), mastered by Will Killingsworth (Orchid) and recorded with Gary Marsden (We Never Learned To Live, Earth Moves) as a session drummer, Collisions is a brilliant display of emotive dexterity that’s far more than it’s impressive credentials. As an album that harbours an air of melancholy, one best suited to be enjoyed in the ever so slightly suffocating dead air of night, it ebbs and flows between bombastic passages of bottled rage, hulking density and meditative stillness in a manner that’s purely organic and natural. The ruminations of genre dynamism that serve as the crux of this record allow it emit an air of pressure that results in an experience that’s weighted and ensures it’s emotional gravity is crushing in the process. This is even crushingly evident when such subject matters are ambiguous or fictional in nature, such in the case of the calamitous ‘Shadow Of Another’, a devastating track exploring celestial apocalypse. Truly, it’s a powerful and devastating record, one made more impressive given the fact that the band have played a total number of shows that lie in the single digits.
With Collisions out now and THÅRN now comfortably sitting alongside other extremely promising post-metal focused bands such as Hidden Mothers, Still and Aerosol Jesus, we got in touch with Luke and Jérôme to discover more about their work and approach.
Related: THÅRN – Collisions | Album Review
For those new to THÅRN, how would you briefly introduce yourselves?
Luke Booth (Bass and vocals): “THÅRN: One is French, the other is English and they play heavy stuff.”
Jérôme Barré (guitar and vocals):” So, yes, THÅRN is a duo between me (Jerome) on the guitar and Luke on the bass. We also share vocal duties. We had Gary Marsden as a session drummer as well for the record.”
Musically, what are your primary influences?
Luke: “Ultimately me and Jerome bonded over our love of post-metal such as Cult Of Luna, Amenra, and Isis and I would say these are probably our main influences for writing in THÅRN.”
Jérôme: “I would add Neurosis, Kylesa and Russian Circles to the list.”
Luke: “I am also a huge fan of progressive and extreme metal like Meshuggah, Car Bomb etc.. so no doubt elements of that have crept in.”
Jérôme: “Yeah for the other influences, only side, it ranges from crust from the 2000’s and 2010’s era, such as Disfear, From Ashes Rise, Wolfbrigade, and of course Fall of Efrafa! Black metal (the more ambient stuff) and some pagan folk stuff inspire me as well.”
THÅRN could be described as somewhat of a supergroup, how did you two initially meet and begin to create music?
Luke: “We originally met through a Facebook group for London musicians I believe, we got chatting and realised we were definitely looking to write and play similar stuff. Jerome sent me some demos of tracks he had written and it just went from there.”
Jérôme: “Depends what you mean by supergroup… But this is more of a collaboration than a band as we are just two core members. Gary, is our current session and live drummer. He did a fantastic job on Collisions. He is already committed to many other projects, so we are flexible with the lineup in that sense. We might have more people come to work with us in the future. Our geographical situation has evolved a bit as I recently moved to the US (New England). This makes the situation challenging but also much more interesting as we’ll extend our collaborations and experiences to the US in the future.”
How are you collectively feeling about the release of Collisions?
Jérôme: “With 32 minutes in, it is about enough to call it a full length. Normally, fairly young bands like us release a few EPs before jumping on a full release. But the way we work and write music allowed us to accumulate enough material during the lockdown. I guess it feels like a great accomplishment although we have played live only once. This was a great experience and we will plan to have some more live performances in the UK in 2022.”
Luke: “Yeah it is a great feeling to finally get this release out. I feel these four tracks perfectly sum up what we aimed to get out there musically. Naturally, on this release, two tracks were originally written by Jerome and the other two were by me but as a collective, we both worked on tightening them up to what the current release will be. One of the tracks I have been sitting on for like 5-6 years so it’s great to get it out there.”
Jérôme: “Yeah same here. I think I managed to bring back a riff stuck in my head since 2014 or so. It came out not at all as I imagined it originally, and it’s what’s nice about collaborating and writing music together.”
The EP was mastered by Will Killingsworth and produced by Joe Clayton, what was it like working with them?
Luke: “Joe was an absolute pleasure to work with, I had met him a few times at shows or through other projects and he is genuinely a nice guy. The recording process with him just felt seamless, he managed to just nail the bass tone I was seeking even though I think I just came in and very broadly said: “I want it like… really dirty and crunchy… but still have a punch”.”
Jérôme: “You can’t find a more easy-going person than Joe. But he’s a working beast as well. We recorded the album in 4 days with about 10 hours of non-stop working. We were taking breaks, Joe wasn’t. Before entering the studio, I put together the preproduction and it was very easy to work with him as everything was more or less planned. During the mixing phase, he totally got where we wanted to aim sound-wise. So this was great! Will is just a reference for mastering heavy music. He’s always nice to work with.”
Collisions is a highly emotional and emotive EP, could you go into detail on the lyrical concepts of the record?
Jérôme: “The topics are about different things, from running away from narcissistic assholes in your life (‘The Way’) to planets colliding and ending everything (‘Shadow Of Another’). Other stuff can be more abstract and I guess it’s up to the listener to feel what they want/can/should.”
Luke: “Like Jerome said, lyrically the record has quite a broad range of subject matter. I think we can both admit that writing lyrics is not our strong point but I’m pretty happy with what we have achieved. ‘Shadow Of Another’ was my venture into a fantasy world with the idea of colliding planets.”
It feels like record touches heavily upon themes of isolation, stagnation and restriction. Considering the record was created during the pandemic, did this influence the record?
Jérôme: “I don’t think this is really what the record is about, to be honest. But I guess that’s one given interpretation so it’s valid. A good part of these riffs were written a bit before the pandemic. But another part of the work such as lyrics writing and arrangements happened during the pandemic. I guess the lockdown forced us to change the way we operated and this is probably reflected in our music.”
Luke: “Yeah I don’t think this record was affected by the pandemic as much as a vast majority of other records coming out this year. Like Jerome said, it forced us to write in a completely different way by having remote sessions and writing sections or ideas down on our DAW [Digital Audio Workstation] and then sharing the project files. Ultimately this meant that when it came to recording we were pretty prepared so it was very beneficial.”
Was creating Collisions a cathartic experience?
Jérôme: “When I create I try to use emotions or situations and then I try to use the medium I have to express it, so yes, you could say this process could be cathartic. The process of writing and arranging songs takes often a long time and recording them in a studio is really exhausting. Having this released soon on two really cool labels (Surviving Sounds and Trepanation Recordings) that trust us, in the creative sense, feels like a big accomplishment. Here is the real cathartic release.”
Post metal and hardcore are genres often far removed from one another, how did you go about pairing the two genres?
Jérôme: “In terms of composition, we aimed for simplicity. We focused on heaviness, harmony and time signatures rather than having a busy shredding type of composition. That’s probably why people are hearing hardcore and post-metal in our songs. The two music genres are not far from each other, in my opinion.”
Luke: “I don’t think we intentionally made a plan to pair the two styles, it was a very natural process stemming from our influences. ‘The Way’ is a great example of this, starts off pretty post-hardcore-ish, mid-way through you get the black metal blasty vibes and then it ends with sludgy doom. When Jerome was writing that it just came naturally.”
Collisions very much feels like a nocturnal record, a dark body of work reserved to be enjoyed in the dead of night. Is this something you agree with and if so, could you elaborate on this?
Jérôme: “Yes I would agree with this. The album cover suggests this as well. I guess this night feeling comes from the simplicity of the riffs and also the space, calmness and sometimes creepiness that we put on a lot of sections. Writing music is a lot about conditioning the listener. Post-metal is a lot about that, using calm and soft parts to contrast with very intense and heavy riffs. Also, most of this was written at night, so maybe that explains why.”
Finally, what do you want people to take away from Collisions?
Jérôme: “I listen to music to escape and dream most of the time. So I hope at least a few people get to dream while listening to Collisions.”
Luke: “Honestly I just really hope people enjoy it, I’m pretty proud of what Jerome and I have put together so if people dig it, we will write some more.”
