T Lenger from the Grand Rapids black metal project Obliti Devoravit, has taken on the name Thin and vomited up this five song ep simply titled Demonstration 2014. On October 5th, Colloquial Sound released an ultra-limited run of 44 tapes of this ep. By the time you read this, those are going to be quickly devoured, leaving Bandcamp as your only hope. The minute and a half of lo-fi rumble called “Female Spit ” starts the ep off by pitting the instruments against one another in a battle royal. The bass fights to overpower the manic jangle of guitar littered with sharp needles of feedback. The guitar wrestles to become more audible as it claws its way to the forefront of the mix. This leaves the punk-ish vocals buried and unintelligible. Even when they float to the surface, they serve as little more than rapid flourish of painful muttering.
This is influenced by black metal more from a production stand point than musically. The music is raw, aggressive and slightly crusty punk. “Dead to Me” features Colloquial Sound’s main man Damian Master lending his voice as a cavernous howl chiming in from the distance. Though not black metal, there are still metal elements, like the stalking chug in the middle of “Dead To Me.” But even there it feels like it’s being thrown at you with manic punk violence. It stays true to a punk ethos of being more about attitude than execution. This applies whether he is primally battering the taut strings of his guitar or lashing out in series of defiant shouts in “the Feeling.”
It’s easy to picture the recording of this album going down all in one drunken night in a house I used to squat in. Full of ideas and energy, some of which would translate better if he got into a proper studio. The spastic rants recall the days of the Maximum Rock ‘n Roll zine from the late 80’s, where the best punk was uncovered before you could Google it from the suburbs. Simplistic is an understatement. It’s the chug of songs like “Put Me On a Wheel” that catches you by the throat. They simmer with a similar violence to some of the crust/death rock cross over in the past two years. The vocals are more tortured, cracking into a growl. The bass pulses like a beefy slab of prehistoric muscle sent to wreck havoc on an apocalyptic wasteland. “One Hand” takes this a step further into the darkness, keyboards hover in the dusk of the howling madman writhing under the almost Swans-like drone they settle into.
Rough around the edges and with all the manner of a feral boar, this album is ready to run you over. Keep your ears out for what Lenger continues to do, it seems like he shifts from project to project every year, so based on his track record, it is doubtful we will hear anything else from Thin. It is worth your time if you like very organic crust to your punk, with a strong lo-fi metal influence
