Doommantia - June 29th, 2011

When I started writing about Revenant, the beautiful new album by Cleveland (Ohio) band Threefold Law I had only said album and the early, raw demo launched by Planetfuzz some time ago.

Both releases are cool but, in spite of some obvious traits-d’union, they seem to be done by somehow different bands.

I was in need of the missing link, the two MMX EPs.

And I got hold of the EPs via the band’s imaginative and clever website where the band has created a cool system for their self-managed merchandise.

As stated in the band’s own biography, Threefold Law rose from the ashes of a previous band called Burning River in 2006 and started developing their style under the influence of classic and present-day heavy, doom metal and stoner/desert rock masters, i.e. Black Sabbath, Kyuss, Trouble, Pentagram, Cathedral, Down, Corrosion of Conformity, plus tons of heavy music and rock absorbed during the youth years.

Surely there are many bands sharing these premises and fortunately many of them are able to deliver some great tunes which are “faithful to the line” and personal at the same time, and, in any case, quite enjoyable..


Threefold Law’s music is heavy and drenched with some great melodies and groove, and all this come from the ability of the musicians in this band to create familiar but diverse, raw to dark or even dreamy soundscapes in the heavy doom/stoner desert hybrid genre. Also the name of the band, Threefold Law, fits to among the dearest themes for doom, like ancient beliefs in pagan religions like Wicca.

So it is good fun.

As it is the case of many metal releases, the band’s lyrical themes want to “tell a story” and, as he band states, are devoted to “expose the frailty of the human condition”.


The MMX EPs, which were released in early 2011, marked an energic approach of the band to the doom-stoner panorama. The two separated EPs, The Rede and The Burning Time were released together. Only one of the two tracks of the early demo is included in this double release, the powerful Killer of the Sultan, now in EP The Burning Time.

The two EPs sum up a substantial amount of tunes distributed into nine varied, heavy, catchy songs.

The two EPs are slightly different from one another. The Rede EP is somehow heavier and rawer but the sounds are layered and have more depth than those in EP The Burning Time, which sound slightly flatter.

Dynamics, vocals and great riffs and long jammings of the double guitars and a cool bass are definitely the trademarks of the band and what links the two EPs together from the musical viewpoint. In these EPs the drumming, although powerful, is maybe slightly suffering from the production which has privileged the strings.

The vocals are cool, quite “metal”, aggressive, sludgy, they spit rage, and in some instances remind me of a mixture between early Corrosion of Conformity and young angry James Hetfield’s tone in early Metallica. During both EPs the vocals don’t change in style.

The guitar sounds are quite rich and are probably better showing the potentials of this band. The leading heavy catchy riff sequences in the first part of the songs convoy to some great and often long and polyhedric jamming between guitars and bass, with oscillation between the dark atmospheres of doom heaviness and almost psychedelic dreamy escapes also thanks to some pedal effects. The aggressive vocal parts mostly occupy the energic riff shots between the jammings and surely further impart dynamics to the overall sounds.

Especially during these long jammings the band’s guys also develop that balanced bit of “experimentation” that helps the band in departing from too predictable beaten paths.

Also one feels the musicians are really having the greatest time while jamming. And it may be like that as these jammings are still present, if not dominant, in the new, debut full-length album, Revenant.


The new album is therefore the “third” release and so it sort of follows the concept of the “threefold law” (or “law of return”), which is basically the Wiccan belief that (thanks, Wikipedia) states that whatever energy a person puts out into the world, be it positive or negative, will be returned to that person three times. In Wicca this would also be indicated as “karma”.

This stream of ideas stemming right from the band’s name is further stressed by the primordial, epic feeling one gets by reading the names of four of the five tracks in album Revenant: Earth, Air, Fire and Water, with Air and Fire separated by an instrumental, exotic interlude.

Earth, Air, Fire and Water, the basic elements of the world especially according to the ancient philosophers, from the classic Greek culture down to ancient Persia. As a matter of fact, according to a recent interview at The Soda Shop, the main ispirer of this album for the band’s frontman and mastermind, James Thorn, have been the delightfully witty but also profund poems (quatrains) by Persian matematician/philosopher/poet Omar Khayyam.

Here is the story told in this album:

“A man traveling alone through the desert in fourth century Persia realizes he may not reach the next kingdom alive. He sets up camp and eats the last of his rations. Before going to sleep, he smokes a pipe of hashish. Unsure whether he is asleep or awake, the man is visited by the spirit of a dead Sultan. The two engage in conversation as the man attempts to find out what lies beyond life.” (from the band’s official website).


One would expect that the epic feelings induced by these titles would be developed by some either oppressive monumental or ethereal music styles where human presence has no sense or place. But no.

As in Khayyam’s style, where human universal concepts are dealt with via the description of human frailties, terrestrial joys and the appreciation of the “laws of nature” as rulers of phenomena in life, Threefold Law come back with their genuine, heavy doom-stoner style and describe the “high concepts” in their way, with their mighty juicy, solid riffs and the guitar jammings found before. There is a difference with what heard before, though, the vocal parts.

The topics announced by the song titles are sonically developed via some quite different styles adopted by the band. As expected the first song “Earth” and the fourth song “Fire” are heavy, “earthy”, solid doom-stoner raaaawk quite similar to the previous releases and carrying the angry vocal style. In Fire the angry vocals remind of Fu-Manchu half-spoken slogans but made angry. In these tracks the mountain is building up, the fire grows and devours everything, pummeling riffs are needed.

When the “concept” is “light” also the sounds and the melodies become light: psychedelia enters rather powerfully into the leading doom backgrounds and the vocal style gets soft, and the resulting “ambience” recalls the light-minded atmospheres of desert rock. And it makes sense as the desert, like the ocean or a mountain, is a raw, basic environment with powerful effects on the human mind.

And here comes the long-lived band’s guys affection for Kyuss …

The second, “soft” vocal style occurring in tracks Air and Water is provided by the drummer who replaces James Thorn’s harsh vocals and adds a cool element of surprise to this varied and dynamic album.

A nice thing in the final track Water is the final part where the intro riff is recalled to “close the story”, so a track that starts “light” develops towards some cool doomy heaviness. Nice!

What is still present and beautifully developed from the previous releases are the long guitar/bass jammings, where doom heaviness is blended with bluesy and psychedelic groove. And these jammings are one of the things I like most of this band’s style.

Production is surely improved in this album and also better renders the drummer’s efforts and contribution.

What I would just add as criticism for the production, for me at least, is about the sound of the guitars in the main riffs outside the jamming parts: I would like them to sound even heavier, deeper or better more fuzzy or rawer, a bit more aggressive.

This album may sound apparently “easy” and I guess that one careless listening would miss the subtleties and shades of Threefold Law’s sound.

I’ve listened to Revenant several times and it constantly grew. It is beautiful. I wouldn’t call this album as a “maturity” album as I have the feeling that this still unsigned, highly endowed band has much more potential for further development. So I am sure that we’ll hear more great tunes by these cats. 8.75/10


Review by Marilena Moroni