Review by UnhinderedbyTalent for Olde Throne - an Gorta Mór (2022)
New Zealand one-man black metal project that themes Celtic history within their songs, Olde Throne were a winner for me before I even ventured into their debut full-length. Thankfully An Gorta Mór matches up to my high expectations of both historic and mythological intrigue as well as ticking all the boxes in the atmospheric black metal stakes also. The album title translates as “The Great Hunger” (or “The Famine” more commonly referred to outside of Ireland as the “Irish Potato Famine”) which was a tragic period of Irish history in the mid-eighteen hundreds that saw over 1 million people starve to death or die from disease over seven years and hundreds of thousands of people emigrate overseas to get away from the starvation and rampant disease of the time.
Olde Throne then, choose a suitably grim and macabre medium in black metal in which to tell this story and the music is appropriately harsh and abrasive to underline the horrific suffering of the time. Equally, the atmospherics emphasize the futility of the situation as whole families literally wasted away whilst staring into a fathomless void of hopelessness and despair. These atmospheres are dense and possess a catastrophic depth to them that is embalmed perfectly by the ghastly vocals and relentless urgency of the riffs. Moments like the melodic guitar work on Connla’s Fate, stay with you long after the album has finished and as such An Gorta Mór is successful for making this representation of such abject misery such a memorable experience.
The temptation would be to expect multiple intro/outro/interlude tracks, yet An Gorta Mór uses a straightforward approach to the song structures, simply letting the harsh impact of the subject matter drive the emotion of the album. Rarely have I heard such an expressive and complete black metal track as A Dying Land, a track that simply plays out the desolation of the events in a stunning tremolo and spoken word/chant combination alongside some more familiar ghastly vocals. The intensity of this track alone is worth the visit to the album.
It is hard to find much in the way of criticism as my only real challenge with the album has been that it requires many visits to truly get the impact of the record. However, I do not often go in search of atmospheric black metal to gratify any need for immediacy of connection. The album most definitely rewards these repeated visits and is an album that will personally stick with me for some time to come.