Throneless: Throneless

The riff, the riff and nothing but the riff

You can trust Louder Our experienced team has worked for some of the biggest brands in music. From testing headphones to reviewing albums, our experts aim to create reviews you can trust. Find out more about how we review.

It may seem a tad premature for a band to unleash their debut album after only a year together but it makes sense once you realise the hypnotic nature of Throneless’s heavy – ‘heavy’ like a dozen mammoth nutsacks – take on doom.

These three Swedes love spawning the kind of riffs that could swallow a whole city so much that they have no problem pounding them over and over and over again.

If it means those four lengthy tracks, ranging from eight to 10 minutes, rarely step out of their initial frame and put all their weight behind chugging on and on instead, at least they make sure all their weaponry is aligned towards the same goal.

The result is desperate vocals drowned in echo, fuzz pedals aplenty and drums that have the kind of bite that seems to resonate from the darkest depths of Mordor. Only Reaching For The Dead’s clean intro and the d-beat-bothering final acceleration dares to break that mould. Even if they sound like an Ufomammut stranded on Earth, Throneless don’t fuck around.