For seven years, Arizona’s Thra have performed tirelessly, transforming the arid desert landscape into an corrupted bog of eternal suffering for the duration of every one of their absorbing, transcendent, and ear-punishing shows. Possessing more creative talents, stage presence, and musical curiosity than many active metal bands of the moment, the band has built on the strong root system its established in the southwest, and its artistic fruit are beautiful, dark, and deadly. While death, doom, and sludge are all in vogue at the moment, it is clear to any discerning listener that Thra’s music is the product of a group of masterful musicians who are also aficionados, dedicated not only to doing right by the forbears of their varied genre influences but also to intertwining diverse creative sources to further develop the overall metal sound. Their highly anticipated debut LP, Forged In Chaotic Spew, is a momentous occasion in heavy music, as it marries death, doom, and sludge in a way that builds on each while creating something special and new.
Rarely does a band have such musical confidence by the time they produce their first major artistic statement. Thra, however, has been writing and performing without ebb since they first formed in 2016. Stalwart fans, supporters, creators, and performers of all things punk and metal in Arizona, the members of Thra have invested time, money, and energy into their creative community while spending 10,000 hours perfecting their own unique brand of deadly desert sludge.
Braiding the sweeping compositions of early Mastodon, the infernal torment of Dragged Into Sunlight, the riff wizardry of Deicide, and the youthful experimentation and passion of 2000’s-era Converge, Thra’s newest release is a Gordian knot, puzzlingly complex and impossibly tight. Here, longtime fans will find the band expanding the scope of their already advanced songwriting skills. On Forged In Chaotic Spew, Thra demonstrates an uncommon rhythmic nuance, playing with stylistic shifts, tempo and time changes, and syncopation that finds a precious balance between the unifying metal energy that captivates rooms of hundreds of people into synchronized headbanding and the genre-defying innovation that bridges styles and shatters expectations.
Thra has built its reputation on the quality of its songwriting, and its debut is an exhibition of a band that, while still young, has put in more sweat than many bands with longer tenure. They are a machine that has been perfectly tuned, and now that they have been broken in a bit, they are off-roading. They loosen standard death-and-doom formulas by employing more open chords, more ambient atmospherics, and more inter-instrument dialogue. While the music can feel scalding and suffocating, like drowning in boiling oil, the compositions themselves, without sacrificing precision, are given much more room to breathe, always a sign of competent and confident musicians.
It is clear that Thra approached composing an LP with a different mentality than they approached composing their shorter releases, as the scope of the piece as a whole has a more intentional arc, with significant stages punctuated by the otherworldly synth-noise twin-tracks “Terror Vessel, Pt. 1” and “Terror Vessel, Pt.2,” and with the album’s longest track, “Blistering Eternity,” a mammoth work of mood manipulation, serving as a central keystone.
From the urgent and alarming opener, “Flame Lurker,” for which the band has just released a powerful video, is the ideal beginning to this excellent album, displaying in under five minutes just how much sonic territory this group of masters has the capacity to traverse.
For those who have been following Thra for years, those who will certainly need no convincing of the band’s quality, Forged In Chaotic Spew will unquestionably register as the band’s finest work so far in what has every right to be a decades-long career. For those who have not listened yet, let them indulge, so that they may encounter one of the finest bands in our modern metal landscape.
Thra talked with Cvlt Nation about Forged In Chaotic Spew.
First, can you introduce the members of the band and any other projects they’d like to promote?
Thra is Rob Wolfe, Matt Marquette, Grey Smith, Zach Nixon-Sandberg. Matt and Zach play in a grind band called Garnak and Grey and Matt play in the rock band Evergreen.
Thra has been putting an extraordinary amount of work into shorter releases and touring over the years. What was the thought process around developing your debut LP? Was there any pressure around a full-length debut being a higher-stakes artistic statement than earlier releases?
The entire recording process felt very natural to us. As a result of all our combined efforts into making this project happen over the years we were able to record in a way that felt comfortable for us. Recording with Josh Medina was an absolute pleasure for us and he really just gave us the tools and guidance we needed to make Forged in Chaotic Spew.
How has performing so consistently over the years influenced your creative process?
We’ve gotten the chance to see some of our favorite acts over the years as well as constantly being blown away by all of the bands we get to meet on the road. Playing consistently is also a great way to work on chops and figure out what works sonically.
Can you describe the writing process for the record? What were some major goals for the release?
Rob writes most of the riffs and when we get an idea of a song structure we’ll all kinda jam it out and add our own flavors. Helps us work on the best approach to present it a full fledged piece of music.
What were your major musical influences for this release? What about lyrical influences?
Our influences really go all over the place. We listen to a lot of the classics like Dio, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, The Band, Sabertooth Zombie, Krallice, and Ween. Lyrical influences mainly stem from the pain of existence and the lack of empathy the universe has.
There is a fair bit of gatekeeping around genres such as death metal, doom, sludge, etc. lately. How do you deal with integrating influences from diverse subgenres without losing a specific sound or audience?
We’ve tended to ignore all of that stuff. We listen to what we think is cool, we try to play with bands we think are cool, and it seems like a lot of people are on board with that. We see more and more diverse crowds and mixed-genre bills popping up all over Phoenix and its great to be a part of that.
Can you describe the heavy music scene in Arizona? Also, are there specific Arizona bands that deserve a larger audience outside of the state?
The AZ scene is killing it right now. We just had our record release show on July 28th, the middle of a record heatwave, and turnout was insane! People stayed the whole night and got to see Eternal rip through some just downright mean death metal, Ugly play some of the most unnerving and emotional heavy sludge you could experience, Gestation deliver a pummeling and gurgling set of goregrind devastation, and Phoenix favorites Saintbreaker came in with their blend of death thrash. Would also love to give a huge shoutout to Pig City, Skin Ticket, Groin, Nuclear Remains, and Sorrower.
What do you love about metal right now? What should change?
Metal’s on a great trajectory right now, all that needs to happen is for people to just keep ignoring genres and make what sounds good.
What should people know about Thra? About Forged In Chaotic Spew?
We dont plan on slowing down at all. We’re planning to tour a lot more and already working on new music. We’re all extremely grateful to anyone who’s ever listened to us, attended a show, or supported us in any way throughout the years.
Is there anything else you’d like to say?
Rest in power Ronnie James Dio.
Forged in Chaotic Spew was recorded and mixed by Josh Medina at Old Hat Analog Studios.
It was mastered by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege.
Artwork is by Fred Grabosky.
