The Obelisk - July 15th, 2011

When last heard from, Cleveland, Ohio, double-guitar four-piece Threefold Law released their EP compilation, MMX, on CD and USB key (review here), effectively bridging the gap between the desire for physical media and the movement forward into the digital era. MMX, for all its innovation, was roughly produced in the manner of digital recordings – everything clear, but flatly mixed – and the same could be said of the outfit’s follow-up effort, Revenant. Like MMX, Revenant is self-released, and also like its predecessor, it is available either on disc or USB. Where the two find their major difference is that the special edition of Revenant also includes a professionally-bound short story by Threefold Law frontman J. Thorn – essentially a pocket-sized book with a glossy cover – as well as the CD version of the five-track Revenant release.

The story is set in ancient Persia and tells the story of an unnamed traveler (appropriate enough, since Thorn is the only one whose name the band makes public) dying of thirst who, after smoking hashish, meets the ghost of a sultan and discusses the afterlife he’s soon to see. Thorn’s writing is rife with description and epically-toned language – on page 17 we get, “The man’s sunburnt face spread into a reluctant smile,” and on 30, the sultan declares, “You will now hear of my journey and of the circumstances that brought us together.” It’s a tone fitting of the tale, but as the dialogue of gods and kings wears on, it feels weighted by the extraneous language. Still, the most powerful moment in the story is reserved for the ending, and as the written piece is broken, like the Revenant disc proper, into sections surrounding the four classicist elements – “Earth,” “Air,” “Fire” and “Water” (on the album, an interlude splits the middle between “Air” and “Fire”) – it only speaks further to the band’s highly conceptual nature. Threefold Law, it seems, don’t do anything without a big idea behind it.

That’s admirable enough in itself, but where Revenant most succeeds is in translating those ideas into the music of the five audio tracks. For the most part, it’s a similar blend of influences as heard on MMX – the classic doom of Trouble and Black Sabbath filtered through a modern dual-guitar approach – but Threefold Law also inject Eastern influences into Revenant to match their stated theme. “Interlude” introduces raga percussion and Eastern scales, but even before that, “Air” has an open feel to its riffing, and Thorn offers a gentler touch on his vocals than on the gruff, chugging opener “Earth,” reminding a bit of a more doomed-sounding Against Nature in the process. “Earth” establishes the course of Revenant nicely, reaching well over eight minutes with an extended intro and solo work that hints at the scope of the Persian concept. There are several solos on “Earth,” and room for them in the song’s runtime, but the variance in atmosphere between “Earth” and the more spacious “Air” is remarkable. Listening to Revenant, it sounds like Thorn and Threefold Law are really trying to embody the titular elements while also telling the story.

It’s an ambitious project, and it would logically follow that “Fire” is the heaviest song on the record. It is in parts, with a more immediate sound that doesn’t begin all out, instead flowing easily from “Interlude” and gradually revealing its character. As with MMX, there is a digitally-compressed sound to Revenant. One can hear it on the cymbals in the drums of “Earth,” and in the guitar of “Fire” – though in the case of the latter, it feels more intentional. Nonetheless, at about 2:40, Threefold Law kick into a heavier crunch and ride that part out for more than a minute, leading to a long fadeout with a repeat of the song’s intro, which in turn gives way to the airy acoustic intro of “Water,” recalling the mystical, strummed feel of “Interlude.”

Their sendoff in “Water” is an appropriate bookend for Revenant, as it summarizes musically just about everything Threefold Law accomplish over the course of the disc’s 32 minutes while also wrapping the narrative lyrically. The laid back vocals reference “Air,” the killer soloing “Earth,” the Sabbathian riffing nearly everything, and at the end of it, as though to underscore one more time just how cohesive a work Revenant is, the foursome cut back into the intro of “Earth” to end the track. Though I maintain some of my production gripes about Threefold Law’s latest, there’s no denying the pervasive nature of the theme they’re working with. From the music and lyrics to the story that accompanies, everything on Revenant is locked in to that central narrative, and greatly to the band’s credit, they never veer from it along their winding path.