METALLIAN - Thorium

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Vocals

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Bass

Drum

History & Biography

Reviews

THORIUM - OCEAN OF BLASPHEMY - DIEHARD
The biography for this Withering Surface/ Taetre side-project claims the band to be the bastard child of the early '90s Florida scene where death metal flourished. Funny, it sounds like the same old Swedish melo-death metal to these ears. In fact, it's all pretty close to Taetre's own brand of death and thrash metal. Stranger still, is the choice of Greighallen Studio where bands like Emperor and Enslaved have had their sound botched in the past, but even stranger, this (mostly) Swedish bunch manage to get a good sound out of the famed studio/ producer and proceed to bash out nine humdrum speedy numbers all in the name of Rock'n Roll (OK the Jerry Lee Lewis reference is mine). Oh yeah, here we go again, there is a cover version included here as well. - Ali "The Metallian"

THORIUM - THE BASTARD - EMANZIPATION
Look, every new album has a dozen guests and so does this record, which makes it trend hopping. Moreover, on guitars is Roga Johnson, whose lack of commitment to any 100 bands makes him suspect and loose at best. Two negatives against the record right off the bat, as these potentially superfluous facts work against Thorium and its newest album. The band, however, has a good track record and is extreme. Two pluses. Moreover, having heard singer MHA in Withering Surface, and liking his voice and finding that record impressive, it is simple curiosity wanting to hear him with Thorium.
The music is thick Scandinavian death metal with distortion to spare. Fans of Grave, Centinex and Dismember will not be left wanting. Vocals are growled and uncompromised. Yet, the more one listens, the more doomy elements come to one’s attention. There is Carcass too on a song like Infamy. This track has the record’s best lead. The band starts the record with a bang and does not let up, but like Withering Surface, melodies are everywhere. The main melody on opener Eclipsed is a familiar one and heard elsewhere, but everything noted thus far rings true for this track. Over The Mountains is slower, but simultaneously more chaotic. The distorted bass makes it through. Nightside Serenade sees the vocals and speed vary. The drummer is pounding the crap out of his kit. Is that a drum machine then? Thomas Ohlsson was part of the recording line-up, but possibly no longer there. The solo is out of kilter. The solos are what I like the least about the record perhaps. I am a fan of solos in metal, and find them to be an essential and pleasurable ingredient, but these ones are largely noise solos. Nonetheless, the album would be worse off without them. The record, as mentioned, has oddly doomy and catchy interludes for such an extreme hoard of metal. Pest is grinding cacophony and Not Equals presents an industrial beat to it probably owing to the topic having something to do with industrial habits or human slavery (or it’s all in my imagination, who knows?). MHA has extreme growly and throaty dual-channel vocals throughout, but listen to him especially croak at the end of the song. It All Comes Back To Me is more like it. The drummer is an ace again and the rhythm is serious as hell. The vocals are suitably depressed but somewhat used minimally on this song. It does not get more old-school than this. Did someone mention “Scandinavia”? Underground (the song) is more Morbid Angel and American sounding including the Cannibal Corpse guitar screeches. Infamy is also melodic. It is becoming apparent that no song called The Bastard is going to make an appearance. Legacy Of The Forgotten is back to the superior Swedeath, yet is slower grindcrushing with vocals of bile. Too bad about the synthesizers.Mesmerize is the final cut. It is different. It’s almost as if it was written at a different time given its more barebones and less crunchy sound. The thrashy start leads to the drum machine (which I know from singer Michael!) Quite an action-packed and effective number here regardless.
The band’s history, and present, is convoluted and complex and anything but linear. Instead focus on all the underground death metal crammed into the record and enjoy. - Ali “The Metallian”

Interviews

This interview did not go as expected. In advance of speaking to singer MHA (a.k.a. Michael H. Andersen) it was not unreasonable to imagine a busy man with a dozen distractions simultaneously. After all, the man is running a record company (or two), is in a few bands, runs another couple of music-related businesses, has live dates coming and presumably has a life outside all that as well. Well, instead, what Ali “The Metallian” got from the singer for Thorium, for whose new 2024 album The Bastard the conversation was conducted, was a calm and attentive man who was happy to answer a myriad of questions and was seemingly not distracted at all. Not sure how bankable it is for a death metal musician to be calm and amiable - surely a fire-breathing demon sells more - but that is who showed up to the meeting. Reading his answer to the last question he may even have a sense of humour (or was he serious?). - 22.08.2024

METALLIAN: What occurred to me, Michael, listening to The Bastard was indeed how old-school the album and its music are. Is this the music that comes out of you, and your team, your group, or did you wake up and go into the studio saying, ‘guys, we're going to do an old-school album’?
MHA: I suppose you read the press release for the album. This time around, with this album, I wanted to go back to almost making an album that was like from before the first album we released back in the day. So, it is definitely going back to the roots. When I hooked up with the Swedish guys, the whole vibe and atmosphere was that we wanted to capture the feeling of Ocean Of Blasphemy (from 2000), which is our debut album and also go further back from that. So, definitely old-school.
It is definitely the '90s. When I finalised the album and started working on mixing the album, I wanted to have a sound that wasn't old-school and be just like the old-school Swedish sound. I didn't want it to sound like 1992 or 1999. I wanted to have a production that actually came out of the speakers right.

METALLIAN: Why did you want what you wanted?
MHA: Well, I have no specific answer to that. When I do music in different periods I'm in different vibes.
The next Thorium album might be an album that is going back to the late ‘80s both music and sound-wise. It depends on where I am in my state of mind. The last album we did was a different album because it was done differently with a different approach. Maybe with the next album, it will be, not maybe, but it will be a different approach with the next album already. I have some ideas already.
So, for me, it's a matter of having a box of ideas and then figuring out, ‘okay, the next album is gonna be like this’. Maybe it's only in my head what the difference is and when the audience hears it, they just hear another story.

METALLIAN: When you say late ‘80s, give me a band name.
MHA: In extreme metal that could be Possessed or early Death or Autopsy stuff like that.

METALLIAN: Okay, got it. As I was listening to The Bastard and now speaking with you about this, and even the next, album I was thinking how busy you must be as a person with your job at the label and being in more than one band. I spoke to Allan of Withering Surface several months ago. That album is so close to this one. How do you find the time or how do you find the will to do so many things?
MHA: Everybody is busy with various things, and, some people, they have three kids, four kids still living at home. Some people have a wife that is very demanding or a family with a mother and father being very demanding. They might have a daytime job that is very demanding, or they train to run a marathon. It's all up to the individual person where you put your energy in.
In regards to, (coughs) I'm catching a cold right now… the weather is changing a little bit in Denmark now. It was very hot the last couple of weeks and then the last couple of days, it's gotten cold again and I'm still wearing shorts… anyway, actually it wasn't on purpose that the Withering Surface album was supposed to be so close to the Thorium album. It's not very good timing, but that's just how it is. We've been working on The Withering Surface album for three years. It kept on being postponed because we had different line-ups, doing drum recordings all over again and many producers doing test mixes for the production. So it just kept on going and some gigs were postponed. But with Withering Surface, when the album was released, it was great. It was how we wanted it to sound. We have the shows that we want and everything. So everything is, like, perfectly timed now. It just took a year too long, I guess, compared to the Thorium album, which is a process where I wanted the direct opposite from Withering Surface and I wanted the direct opposite from the last Thorium album. I wanted the new Thorium album, The Bastard, to be a spontaneous album and focused, like going to work. I wanted to approach it like, you know, a regular job where you have a deadline to finish everything even though it's cultural stuff, art, music… so, when I decided to do this album and hooked up with the songwriters and did the songwriting, then I did the vocals, the lyrics, the artwork and now when it's being released. It's a process of half a year from start to finish. It's really a relief to do it like that because you're finished. You're not continuing to open up the files and rerecording the vocals and deciding that the artwork needs to be a little bit different. So, this process has been quick and dirty. It's an amazing feeling and it feels like I'm not living in the past and thinking that everything was better when I was 19.
But back then you had a quick process. You rehearsed all the time. You went to the studio. You only had a couple of days to record because it was expensive. You had no money and then you released it on a cassette three weeks later without thinking what to do with it. So, it's just great to not have too many cooks involved saying, ‘can we please have the snare drum a little higher? Can we please get the guitars a little more distortion, the vocals should blah blah blah blah.’ This album is not perfect in the production. It's not perfect in the playing. It's not perfect in the vocals, but I decided that when I did the vocals I had a day to do each song and when I was done, I was done. I didn't look into the files again four days later and think, ‘is this good enough?’ because that would ruin it. Sometimes, if you mix music too much and work on it too much, it gets ruined. If you listen to music from before AI and before whatever is the thing that people talk about with AI that you can do - and you can do amazing stuff with AI - you can do amazing stuff in a studio replacing all the instruments and with various plug-ins and stuff, but me being 49 now the album has a vibe and has songwriting. Some of the most amazing classic rock albums haven't been overproduced. Of course, it also happened when, for example, Foreigner started to get big, they had a year in the studio and Def Leppard had whatever too, but again, the first Black Sabbath album was done in a couple of days. So, I wanted to capture that feeling, the spontaneous feeling of doing music and being totally into it. So, it was fully focused, in a short period of time and then the product was done. And it was amazing. Let's see what I think in a year. The people I played the album for, that I respect, in my nearby surroundings are very impressed by it. I am going to meet with with my friend Michael Poulsen from Volbeat tomorrow who really likes the new album so it's great.

METALLIAN: There was the old Mighty Music sticker proclaiming, “we'll still be metal when you have short hair, an ugly wife and work 9 to 5."
MHA: About remaining metal even after working 9 to 5. I'm trying to get long hair again (pulls on his hair), you know? I haven't quite convinced my wife about getting Botox yet (laughs), but let's see. But I am not working 9 to 5.

METALLIAN: I imagine you're working probably 7 to 9 or something. Then have a gig from nine to midnight.
MHA: Yeah. Something like that. But it's my hobby, as well. So it's the older you get, the more you appreciate getting your regular sleep and just relaxing and since I'm self-employed, I can do that whenever I want.

METALLIAN: About the other thing that you said, I know you have a gig with Withering Surface in two weeks, and your disciplined approach to this album is interesting because you put it as the function of efficiency and productivity. Yet, I can only imagine when you have a producer and you have these guys around you who have wives and children and train for marathons or you're some Swedish guy who's in a 101 bands that no one can keep track of…
MHA: No. No. It's impossible. It's impossible.

METALLIAN: We almost have a running joke about the number of bands some musicians are in on our website. Anyway, everything you said sounded logical except when you have all these people and you have to consider other people's schedule, how do you, herd the cats?
MHA: The thing is, when I decided how this album should be done, people had some very strict deadlines, and I wanted to make sure that the deadlines were kept. When you're working with people that are professional in their mindset, they deliver. Once they delivered, it was my job to finalise the album, finalise the mix and put the pieces together and make sure that the melodies and the keyboards and all that are in place. I sort of finalised this album this time. None of the other guys had any input or any say in how the final sound and how this final mix and how the final production of the album should be. So, once they delivered everything it was up to me to, you know, put the puzzles together. The same with the artwork. It was a lot easier this time around. Of course, you need to have someone to lean on and ask, ‘what do you think about this?’ I have pretty good ears even though they're old, but I don't have studio ears where I can hear all the frequencies and stuff. So, obviously, I use some of my friends and asked them ‘what did you think?’
Working with professional people that do not have big egos and know their role is a big benefit.

METALLIAN: This takes me to the next question, which is who's in the band? I have seen the press release, but are you saying the next album is going to be a totally different line-up and It's just you and collaborators?
MHA: I think, more or less, the steady line-up in Thorium is the longest lasting line-up and the same as the last album. There's been a lot of changes in the band and Swedish people and Danish people and back and forth. This is like the steady line-up with the five Danish guys. What inspired me to start this album was when we played in South America last year and I met some old Swedish friends. I just wanted to make this album that was old, old-school, sounding in a specific way. The Danish guys weren't really up for it because the Danish guys, the Danish team are busy guys, having four kids, doing whatever they do. Some other people wanted to rehearse four times a week to make it happen and all that. So I said I'm going to do this album myself. I was going to call it Sverige originally, I wanted to call it ‘Sweden’ because the last album was called Danmark. But then again, I thought, let's call it The Bastard because it's me fucking around having intercourse with guys from from Sweden instead of my Danish guys.
So it's a ‘bastard’ outcome. So, the Swedish guys are not a part of the regular Thorium line-up, Rogga (Johansson), Thomas (Ohlsson). But Jesper (Nielsen) playing bass is and then Marco (Angioni) who did keys and stuff is not a part of it either. So, this is more like a bastard Thorium album. I hope that the next album will have the Danish team doing it together.
I have ideas on how it should sound, maybe going back to, like I said, maybe earlier, maybe a more primitive approach. I have some ideas and I think that and hope that the Danish team will be involved next time. But then again, I wanted to not wait too long. I set some deadlines as well to have a new Thorium album ready and the deadlines kept on being postponed because they are busy guys.
We only have two songs for a new album and are we going to do two songs per year? Then we're going to do the next album in, you know, five years and I can't wait for that!

METALLIAN: Let's talk about a couple of songs. I didn't get any lyrics. So I was trying to listen. Let's pick up on Not Equals. It's definitely not industrial, but it has that industrial beat. Does this sound have anything to do with the lyrics?
MHA: All the lyrics for the album were done spontaneously. When I wake up in the morning, I prefer to start working early in the morning when my brain is fresh. So, the lyrics have various catch phrases from various notes. In the morning, I put them together, and did the vocal recordings for the specific songs. Of course, I've been listening to the songs for a few weeks and had them in my mind going for a walk, exercising so you get the songs under your skin. In Not Equals It just came automatically with the marching theme as well as some of the other songs that came as a natural inspiration. Wth the song Underground I wanted to have the more deep David Vincent like, almost clean, vocals and the same process where I decided to have keyboards in a song.
Sometimes, when you overthink stuff, it doesn't get better. I wanted to have a clean mind and the mindset of a young guy who's not overthinking stuff. Because the more you overthink, since this is not progressive music, it comes from my spine when I do this stuff. It's, like, totally natural.
I might not have that natural approach to things in five years. It might be gone again because who knows if you're still inspired to do stuff? But right now, and with this album, both lyrics and vocals just came spontaneously. It's definitely a privilege.

METALLIAN: Speaking of the song Underground, listening to the album had me thinking of the European sound with the exception of Underground, which is indeed notable for its Morbid Angel-oriented style, which stands out.
MHA: I think that one and then Not Equals, and the song Pest as well are more American sounding. Back in the day, when I made the physical flyer that I made for Thorium before we released anything real, it was like combining the Swedish and the Florida sound. The generation we are from, everything came out of Florida, Deicide, Obituary, Morbid Angel, etcetera and Sweden. So back then when I formed the band in 1997 I wanted to have a combination of those two things. And songwriting-wise for the new album, it is a combination as well.
And again, it comes naturally to me. Some of the lyrics I did for some of the more melodic songs, like It All Comes Back To Me Now and Nightside Serenade. It All Comes Back To Me Now has almost a hardcore feel to the vocals, but it came naturally as well.

METALLIAN: Enjoyed the song Mesmerize, which closes the album.
MHA: The thing with Mesmerize is that it's a song that was recorded three years ago. So, it's a bonus track on the album that was done together with Henrik “Heinz” who used to be in Hatesphere. During COVID, when everybody was asking, ‘what are we going to do?’ and sitting on Skype and talking and stuff, I did songs with him and we did that one.
The other guys from Thorium weren't able to, because our drummer wasn't able to play it. It was too fast and the other guys didn't want it on the last Thorium album because it was too complex. Whatever. So, I'm like, with this album, fuck it, I am going to put it on this album. So, It's a machine that plays the drums.

METALLIAN: Is that the only song that's played with a machine?
MHA: Yeah. Yeah. Thomas plays the rest of the songs. It was meant for Danmark, but it never happened.

METALLIAN: Now I get it. The song did stand apart. Okay, I want to ask you about the cover and the map of Sweden on the back of the creature.
MHA: Exactly.

METALLIAN: What am I looking at on the cover given how the album may have been called ‘Sweden?’ The related question is the title, The Bastard. There is no song called The Bastard.
MHA: It is a bastard album. I looked up on Google to see what a bastard looks like. What's the English word when you have a kid outside of marriage? What's the English word for when you have a kid outside the marriage?

METALLIAN: Like an illegitimate child?
MHA: Something like that. Back in the day, he was probably called a bastard, you know? So that's the whole thing, it is like a bastard. I tried to Google stuff and look up a bastard that would be deformed in various ways and presented some of my ideas to Roberto Toderico (who did the artwork). Then in the end, we wanted to give him free rein to make some sort of a monster that looked like a bastard from behind.The Swedish map was my idea. I saw a comment that it looks like the backside of the monster from (Kreator’s) Pleasure To Kill. So I'm like, ‘what?’ Then I looked at the comment. Yeah. Okay. Alright.

METALLIAN: Let me shift the questions to the vocals. You have said several times in this interview that you are trying to be spontaneous, but also on schedule. Do you tune your vocals on purpose, as in Withering Surface gets its own tone while Thorium gets another?
MHA: I guess that I pretty much have control over my vocals now. I know what I can do and what I cannot do. I know I am not Rob Halford or Dio or Peter Steele for that matter, but I keep on pushing myself and finding new ways. Obviously, it's become easier because I have my own home studio.
Not that I am cheating and distorting stuff or whatever. It's all natural, but back in the day, you tried out the vocals more in a rehearsal room with guitars, drums and bass. It's not often that you have total control over that because it always sounds different in a rehearsal room. You have to be loud and then when you finally enter the studio, you find out what you actually sound like. So nowadays, it's easier to have control over what I do and I definitely keep on experimenting.
I know what's what and what is Thorium and what's Withering Surface. Then again, it's me singing. So it will always be a combination of those.

METALLIAN: Is Thorium’s next activity a new album or is there something else for the band such as shows or touring?
MHA: Yeah, sure. I am going to meet up with the Danish team. It sounds like a soccer match. (Picks up an LP…)

METALLIAN: What does it say on the sticker?
MHA: It just says, “The Bastard. New album from the Scandinavian death metal band. Limited to 200 copies.Red Vinyl.” So I am going to meet up with the Danish guys and sign the album for pre-orders. Then we'll be talking about when to actually play live. Right now, we're looking at April next year because I am going to play with Withering Surface this year. Going to play next week at a festival and then go to Japan, play another festival with Withering Surface and do a tour early next year from January to March. So, the idea is to look into having some Thorium gigs in the springtime next year.

METALLIAN: Thanks for shedding light on the new album and updating us on Thorium, Michael. The final question for you is why is Metallian the best website in the universe?
MHA: Yeah. Yeah, it's because I've known the magazine since the ‘90s, and Yves, who plays bass in Nightmare has been a friend for 30 years. So, that's why I like the magazine. Oh, it's not that magazine (laughs). If I were an American and just continued blabbering like I knew everything, it would be amazing… Like an American bass player in a death metal band from Florida.

The band is Thorium. The album is called The Bastard. It deserves to be heard. More information can be found here.

If you enjoyed this, read Grave

Thorium