THÅRN are a brand new hardore infused post-metal/sludge project consisting of members of We Never Learned To Live making a darker, more pained and apocalyptic sound. THARN have made a ferocious and cerebral debut full length which is being co-released by Surviving Sounds and Trepanation Recordings on November 12th and today we’re giving it a nod with an insightful interview that dives deeper into their identify as artists and gives you a good perspective on their craft.
THÅRN are powerful new contenders in Britain’s thriving post-metal scene. Formed just prior to global lockdowns before ever playing a show, the London based duo could have easily called it quits right there, but persevered to write and record their hard-hitting debut album COLLISIONS. A perfect marriage between textured sludge metal, fiery post-hardcore and blackened atmospheres, THÅRN capture a nuanced sound that can be as cerebral as it can urgent and highly emotive.
THÅRN consists of Luke Booth (We Never Learned To Live, ex-Human Future) and Jérôme Barré (Finis Omnivm, Screensaver) successfully finding a dark and pained sound that evokes so vividly the torment of isolation, restriction and stagnation into four lengthy, apocalyptic songs. Producer Joe Clayton (Pijn, Leeched) has captured THÅRN’s explosive anguish in perfect sonic detail on a dynamic record that hits you with a physical, weighty and volatile performance. THÅRN can be as blunt and crushing as they can be patient and textured, creating an opus that ebbs and flows like the artwork’s moonlit tide. The core duo were drawn together by their shared love of sludge, post-metal and hardcore, pairing their influences together into one sphere, which is so effortlessly reflected across the album.
Through little hype or promotion, THÅRN have captured the attention of both Surviving Sounds and Trepanation Recordings, who have become so enamored that they’ve decided to co-release Collisions on different physical formats together, which will be released on November 12th 2021. Recorded at No Studio in Manchester and mastered by Will Killingsworth (of US screamo legends Orchid), THÅRN’s anticipated debut full length will be crash landing just in time to fuck up your album of the year list.
For fans of: Cult Of Luna, Amenra, Wren, Hundred Year Old Man, We Never Learned To Live.
Hey guys, thanks so much for joining us on IDIOTEQ. How’s the autumn mood in London? How are you?
Luke (Booth, Bass and vocals): Hey, thanks for having us! Well, I’m the only one currently in London, Jerome made the move to the US a few weeks back.
Jerome (Barre, Guitar and vocals): Yes, I just moved to New England. I am closer to nature there. So it’s beautiful.
How is the fourth wave of COVID impacting your local community and how is it different from previous chapters of this insane era?
J: Right here in the US, it feels like wearing a mask is almost a political statement. We all know how the US is divided… and COVID is another topic where people can be… It’s really weird as some places look completely business as usual but some communities keep having some awareness.
L: I work in London every day and it seems like people are forgetting that we are still in a pandemic. It has got to that point where I’m the strange one for wearing a mask on the underground.
How has the pandemic impacted both your personal lives and music related projects?
L: Personally it wasn’t too much of an impact on me; I have been lucky to work so I have not had too much to worry about compared to a lot of other people I know whose lives have had to change completely from it. Musically it has been quite an impact though, with my other band we had a whole summer booked of festivals and tours that were all cancelled which absolutely sucked. With THARN it forced us to do a lot of writing from home/zoom calls.
J: Interestingly, for me, it’s kind of the inverse. My personal life has changed a lot. I usually work in an office. The lockdown made me realize that I can do my job remotely and spend the time and energy I usually spend on commuting to something else more constructive, music for example.
On the music-related projects, I started to dive seriously into using DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) and music production for a few years. And having to operate remotely for a band was absolutely not new to me. In 2017, I started to work remotely with people in France on a post-black metal project called Finis Omnivm. This worked for a while but the focus, experience and motivation required from some were not there in the end. But working remotely with Luke really works as he brings so much of his expertise. This turned into actual collaboration and not just one person steering the wheel.
Tell us a bit more about your musical backgrounds, how the band got together and what are some of the core ideas and concepts that form the foundation of THARN.
L: For me I have been playing bass for around 18 years now. Studied music at college for a few years and having been playing in bands for the last 15 years or so. Think it was around 3 years ago when I was actively looking to start or join a post-metal band when I put a message out on a London Facebook group. Jerome answered the call with a project that he had already written a few tracks for and it just blossomed from there. The original idea was just to create some heavy post-metal stuff in the vein of our shared influences such as Cult of Luna, Amenra, Neurosis etc.
J: I had a skatecore band when I was 16, and after that, I never stopped playing in bands. I am now 37. *laughs. Like Luke, I had a journey musically (from punk-rock to screamo, to crust, to black-metal, to doom and drone) and this was very influenced by the places and the music scenes associated I lived in (Paris then Toulouse in France, Boulder Colorado, London UK and now back in the US near Portland Maine). The idea I had when I started demoing stuff for THÅRN was to create something plain yet powerful but with a good focus on harmony. The bands that Luke mentioned are major influences for us.
Continued below…
”Collisions” comes as a darker, more massive and apocalyptic sound than your previous projects. What inspired you to gravitate towards this kind of aesthetics?
L: Honestly I think it’s just a culmination of what me and Jerome both listen to influencing our writing process.
J: Yeah, this album is really 50/50 in terms of writing and every time myself or Luke bring new ideas it just clicks. So it went on naturally.
How was the writing and recording process? Did the pandemic force you to apply methods different from the usual set of operations?
L: For writing, Jerome and myself figured out a pretty good way of writing ideas through our DAW and then sharing project files as we couldn’t write in the traditional method during the lockdowns. It meant when we came to record Collisions with Joe Clayton at No Studio in Manchester we had completely fleshed out tracks that we had done from home and we knew exactly what to play because we could reference our guide tracks.
J: Exactly pre-production is key to ensuring a successful recording session.
Continued below…
How did you evolve as artists since your early recordings and your first bands’ debut records? How do you translate this experience to your next creations and how did this new opus from THARN benefit from that?
L: I think I have evolved in my style quite a bit. I originally was very much into technical music, always trying to create more difficult or challenging sections to create interest in my writing. I still do diverge in and appreciate this style but I have learned that sometimes all it takes to create an interesting musical motif could be as simple as hitting an open string hard enough to make it go slightly out of tune *laughs! See ‘The Way’. With THARN I feel like this balance is there for me, it’s a healthy mix of technical writing and straightforward riffing.
J: Luke brings nice and interesting time signatures, which I don’t naturally tend to create. I tend to focus on harmony and imprecisions, off-tune guitars and gross guitar effects. *laughs
Lyrically, what issues does the new record cover?
L: Our lyrics tend to cover a vast area of topics, we both share lyric writing duties so we never tend to have an over-arching theme or even style. For example with my writing credits; ‘Mute’ is about not being able to speak out in social settings and having to fight with your shy or cowardice traits when someone is being overtly racist/homophobic/sexist. On the flip side ‘Shadow of Another’ is me reaching into the depths of my fictional/fantasy creative and thinking: “Wouldn’t it be like crazy if like, two populated planets collided with each other…” *laughs!
J: On this record, I only wrote the lyrics of ‘The Way’. It is an allegorical depiction of a narcissist on the rise (using the myth of Icarus) and how much we should not pay attention to it and walk away, continue on your way.
Can you describe your earliest memory of being fascinated with experimental / post metal?
L: Well for post-metal it was probably around the time I joined the band Human Future. Those guys introduced me to a lot of bands including Cult Of Luna and Isis.
J: I was evolving a lot in the crust-core scene in the late 2000’s and discovering Fall Of Efrafa completely changed my perspective on heavy music. I know this band is not classified as post-metal but, if you haven’t done so, just go ahead and listen to the albums…
How about modern offerings from the genre? Can you list your top end of the year records worth a check in 2021?
L: I’m really bad at listening to new releases, I’m the kind of person who asks people if they have heard a certain band’s new album and then realise it came out 2 years ago! *laughs. But noteworthy bands on the scene for me currently are MØL, Dvne, and more on the progressive side: Epiphanic Truth.
J: I am the same, *laughs, I am sometimes telling myself: “how the hell have I missed that release?” I remember seeing an interview from J. Bannon (Converge) saying that it is impossible to know all the good bands now and that it is sometimes overwhelming. I tend to relate to that. THÅRN adds to the gigantic amount of material out there. But it’s not up to me to say if that’s good…
The last Bossk is cool of course. Go also check Old Horn Tooth and what they’ve done with the EP ‘True Death’ and Still with their last album {} on Trepanation recordings.
Alright, so what’s up next guys? Give us some details about your plans for the coming months, possible live shows, etc.
L: For now I think me and Jerome are just taking it easy and focusing on this release. It has been a busy few months in our personal lives (Jerome moving to the US and me going down a new career path). But we are planning in the new year to write some more material and hopefully arrange some shows.
J: Yeah 2021 was something for me… I got to record at No-Studio, became a Dad, quit my current job and moved internationally (WTF *laughs). Writing is planned for 2022, I am actually itching so that’s good. Shows, let’s see what we can do. I would like to have a few planned in the UK in June 2022.
Awesome. Thanks a lot for your time. Feel free to share your final thoughts and take care! All the best and once again, congrats on the amazing, crushing new record! More power to you!
L: Thank you very much. Hope everyone enjoys the record!
J: Thanks for having us! I would really like to thank our two labels Trepanation Recordings and Surviving Sounds for the trust and support they are giving us!
