Blood Red Throne – Nonagon
Reviewed By: Dennis van’t Hoofd
Review Score: 8.0
When Daniel ‘Død’ Olaisen and Tchort formed Blood Red Throne in 1998 they had a unique selling
point in that the two of them played live for Satyricon, and the latter credited with bass on
Emperor’s influential debut album In The Nightside Eclipse.
Fast-forward twenty-six years later and Blood Red Throne is now a well established death metal institute from Norway with guitarist Død and drummer Freddy Bolsø as the only remaining founding members. With Nonagon Blood Red Throne releases their eleventh studio album with new vocalist Sindre Wathne Johnsen, who replaces long time frontman Yngve ‘Bolt’ Christiansen.
The nine tracks on Nonagon are conceptualized around the nine concentric circles of torment located within the earth as described in ‘Inferno’, the first part of the fourteenth century poem ‘Divine Comedy’ by Italian writer Dante, but the lyrics are free for interpretation. Ever since their 2001 debut album Monument Of Death or 2002’s Affiliated With The Dead, Blood Red Throne have been delivering relentless death metal strongly rooted in early nineties US death metal and Nonagon is no exception to that rule.
Blood Red Throne stay true to their sound and treat us with yet another pounding death metal release, full of technical riffs, fat grooves and slamming parts. Musically, Blood Red Throne mixes the brutality of Cannibal Corpse and the melodic grooves of Amon Amarth and out comes a fine blend of old-school groovy yet technical death metal. New vocalist Sindre Wathne Johnsen delivers a great job with his versatile death grunts and high pitched screams and is a great addition to the line-up of Blood Red Throne.
Fans of groovy no-nonsense death metal with a great full-sounding production should definitely check Nonagon out. The album is out now via Soulseller Records.