Throne Of Iron – Adventure One – Album Review

No Remorse records 2020

“Will you answer the call?”

Eh, fuck it.

And thus begins the inaugural campaign from Bloomington, Indiana’s Throne of Iron and their appropriately titled debut album Adventure One. In spite of the indifferent response at the prospect of such an epic journey, Throne of Iron answers “A Call To Adventure” with aplomb, whisking listeners away to a land of echo soaked reverb narrated by omniscient dungeon master Tucker Thomasson.

At this point, it would be important to note that while Throne of Iron are a new band, they’re comprised of musicians that have been playing for over ten years, primarily in black and doom metal projects (see Avakr and Thorr-Axe for reference). Needles to say, Throne of Iron went into Adventure One with a shitload of experience points and multi-class capabilities. As such, the prerequisite gallops of epic heavy metal are peppered with nods to the member’s knowledge of different genres. A good example of this would be Adventure One’s second track “Past the Doors of Death”. With an acoustic intro that wouldn’t be out of place on an Emperor release, black metal style vocals subtly creep into the foreground before morphing into dungeon synth towards the song’s conclusion. Speaking of dungeon synth, album closer “Wish” (composed by guitarist Corwin Deckard) wraps things up nicely. Whoever said metal and dungeon can’t coexist is a fool.

Throne of Iron certainly don’t hold out on the heavy part of epic heavy metal and once again this goes back to the member’s previous experience. Having spent several years in the trenches of the doom scene results in Adventure One having a plethora of journeyman level guitar work courtesy of vocalist/guitarist Thomasson. Per the band’s biographical information, Throne of Iron was formed following the death of Mark “The Shark” Shelton and the skill behind the experience on Adventure One is on par with that of the departed Shark.

Getting back to the songs themselves, there’s plenty of adventure to go around. The Hellhammer style dungeon crawling of “Dark Shrine of Rituals” contrasts nicely with the more heroic sounding “The Power of Will”. The interlude between “Lichspire” and “The Fourth Battle of the Ash Plains” adds to the tongue in cheek narration that starts the album. In regards to those two songs, “Lichspire” is Throne of Iron at their most epic (and most humorous if the music video is anything to go by), whereas “The Fourth Battle of the Ash Plains” is Throne of Iron at their fastest. 

Proving to be a fertile genre in the underground, Throne of Iron’s Adventure One is a great addition to epic heavy metal’s library of tales. 10/10

THRONE OF IRON – Adventure One
Label: No Remorse Records
Release date: 21st Feb, 2020