Rhino-Dead Throne Monarch

Arctic
2009

Sometimes for reviews I do check other sources to help me. For this review I went to a dictionary after hearing the album a few times. I looked up the word monotony and found two entries. The first was about a lack of variation in pitch or inflection and the second meaning was about being tedious or repetitious. All of the above applies to Spain's Rhino. Normally this would seem to right up my alley. Heavy doom with thrash bits pieced woven in here and there. Undoubtedly establishing a heavy foundation was certainly high on Rhino's list of things to do on this album I am sure. It is loud, but not particularly effective. They enter into the realm of raw sludge, but they just wallow around in their riffs without building or creating much of anything. At times they remind me of Crowbar, another band who thought slow and heavy music had to be dull and tedious. Rhino have an okay grasp on initially establishing some promising tones, but they drone on without any real direction. They do manage to mix in some thrash parts throughout. The change of pace was welcomed by my ears, but it didn't really the songs a great deal. The thrash bits were okay by themselves and seemed more tacked on than anything. I gave "Dead throne monarch" several plays hoping it might take, but it actually wore on my nerves the more I heard it. My biggest gripe with this disc is that the band never really reaches out. They seem all too content to try to ride out time without ever attempting to accomplish much of anything. Indeed I don't think they accomplished much at all on this disc.