I’ll be super honest: There is no way I could get through what frontline workers in this pandemic have faced ever. Like, ever. It’s complete insanity to me, and part of my utter crippling fear is my being a hypochondriac and not being able to even think about one of my worst fears actually sits in front of me and could be interacting with my body.
If you look at the cover of “Une balle dans le pied,” the new EP from Throane, you see the band’s creator Dehn Sora’s sister’s peeling, brutalized feet from her time as a nurse, running and pounding floors trying to help patients, with her own physical well being thrown to the side. The album’s title is a French saying for “a bullet in the foot,” and Sora took the saying that means sabotaging oneself to examine those mental and physical wounds that put other people’s needs first and the price that’s paid. The release is a single 13:20-long track that creates misery about paying that price amid spiraling, mind-toppling black metal that’s daring and completely unkempt.
“Une balle dans le pied” is the 13:20-long sole track on the EP, wrenching open and letting the vocals enter an echo chamber. Muddy guitars choke as the playing warps, leaving you grasping for a place along the wall to maintain your balance. The track is sucked into a cloud, humming until the guitars jar, and a strange ambiance fills the room. Guitars dizzy as the bizarre tones get thicker, crazed howls chip away at granite, and then the sound disappears into a void, only to resurface by rushing back in. The growls pound away, the guitars loosen screws, and melodies bubble, going off into an unsettling atmosphere that’s scary and weird, bludgeoning the final nail.
Much homage has been paid to medical workers since this pandemic started as they’re on the frontlines of the battle and have seen things we cannot imagine. But it’s not like this is news, as you can attest from the photo of Sora’s sister that adorns the cover of “Une balle dans le pied.” Throane have managed to combine different mediums of art to convey this pain and agony that never really ends, a fact that’s punishingly spread over these brutal 13 minutes.
For more on the band, go here: https://www.facebook.com/throane
To buy the album (North America), go here: https://debemurmorti.aisamerch.com/
Or here (international): https://www.debemur-morti.com/en/12-eshop
For more on the label, go here: https://www.debemur-morti.com/en/
Meat Mead Metal 