Hailing from Grimsby, UK, Dire Thorns is a dynamic, bilingual ensemble that deftly blends the aggressive intensity of nu-metal-influenced death metal with a theatrical flair, distinguished by their signature masked appearances.
Comprising vocalist/guitarist 001, bassist Autumn, and Drummer Joe, the band officially took root in January 2019. Even before their music was released, Dire Thorns garnered attention through their captivating practice videos and humorous skits on YouTube. From 2022 onward, they have showcased their visceral on-stage energy across the UK, sharing the stage with renowned bands such as Hellfekted, Luna’s Call, and Thrashatouille.
The band’s creations are testaments to their relentless determination to triumph over adversity; they are the hard-won fruits of dealing with poverty, limited resources, and an unstimulating hometown.
The driving forces behind their music are frustration, anger, and an unwavering resolve to ensure this challenging journey culminates in success.
The band’s debut EP “State of Sikosis” comes out on May 26th, and today we’re pleased to give you an early dive into each and every song from the record below.
SIKOSIS
The opening track is actually a reworking of (I think) the second song I ever wrote, called “Psychosis”. I did a little bit of intentional misspelling in the name to, firstly, make it look cooler, and most importantly, to make it far more searchable. I took the riffs from the original song 11 year old me made, gave a more interesting structure and rewrote the lyrics from being random violent gibberish to being a relatively detailed account of my anxiousness throughout life, mostly focusing on the looming paranoia / suspicion of people around me having alterior motives and spreading false claims about me, which I feel many can relate to, especially in this day and age. Overall, there’s nothing too deep about this song lyrically or musically, it’s a fun, bouncy song with a familiarity to our older material that introduces an EP that holds many changes from the Dire Thorns people had previously come to know…
NASHA STRANA
The first song me and drummer Joe wrote together, as well as the lead single released back in March. I wrote this song as somewhat of an abbreviation of my whole political standpoint, primarily based around my distain towards the English Conservative Party (or Tories as we call them here). Since this is also one of our new bilingual russo-songs, I had to include criticisms towards the Putin regime in Russia too, just because I hate one evil doesn’t mean I agree with a different one. Whilst bastards like this tear apart our hopes for any sort of future, you have people who decide to blame these issues on sub-sections of common society, claiming the problem is immigrants, or Jews or women or men, and devote all of their energy to throwing spite at whatever group they consider their enemy. Ultimately, the message of this song is that your enemy is the one who runs your systems, not any kind of common person, they don’t have any power in this, and sharing one thing in common with the people who ARE the problem, doesn’t make them that problem. But yea it’s a pretty heavy song too.
FEED ME TO THE INFERNO
This is the first song that me and the current bassist write together. I wanted to see what Autumn had to offer from their melodic capabilities and black metal influences and I was not disappointed, being the song to not only feature our first guitar solo, but also our first bass solo. Lyrically, this song is about feeling detached from the world, as if you’re on a different frequency to other people. I’ve always found it hard to understand how people think and how the world works socially. This also ties with the subject of the previous two tracks, with my paranoias around being targeted as an enemy as a result of my identity and finding it difficult to understand other people’s trains of thought. This song is a little complicated and details confusions that I’m still working my way around, so a concluded message is yet to be unveiled.
FLESH (HIT THE PANIC)
I mostly wrote this song for fun really, I’d been getting into a lot of Korn and found their dumb horny songs fun to listen to. I also believe that the best kind of freedom is having nothing to hide, so I decided to write a similar kind of song. I made an animated music video for this don’t about four times over, some attempts being dissatisfactory and others being straight up lost. The final version seen today was slapped together in about two days and I couldnt be happier with the result. So yea, fun song, lots of Panic chords and some of the coolest riffs I’ve ever written.
PARACYTE
And thus, we close the EP with another purposefully misspelt title. Despite being a ballad, this has one of the heaviest militaristic rhythms I’ve done, and about five different guitars layered on at some points as well as Autumn’s wonderful melodic bass touch. The lyrics are written about my first proper relationship, which was mostly a one sided endeavour for me to try and keep hold of someone who showed little to no interest after the first month or so, despite continuing to keep me on a string. They made me feel more alone than ever, and that shit hurt. “if I’m such a chore, might as well say goodbye”. The song ends heavily and abruptly, alike to this analysis! I hope you all go out and listen to this and, as always, enjoy if possible.
