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Dire Thorns - Review

Young, Masked Bilingual Nu-Death Metal from Lincolnshire, UK. Enjoy if possible.

DIRE THORNS

(Unsigned)

NU-DEATH METAL

Review By: SAM LOUGHLAN

Band members:     Jake McCabe (Vocals/Guitar)

                          Autumn Buckley (Bass)

                          Joe Sellars (Drums)

Track list:              Nasta Strana

                          Flesh (Hit the Panic)

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Hi everyone! We have been really busy here at Heads up North putting together some content for this website. As you may have noticed we have several promoters that we are currently working alongside and want to give their bands the best boost in getting their names out there in the alternative music scene. This particular band bring an original edge to nu-metal as these guys are a lot heavier. Now this one was brought to me by our good friend and promoter Gary Mcintosh of Mcintosh Inc Promotions. Now after spending the past year promoting for The Talbot in Blackpool, Gary is branching out further into the music scene and now has become a band manager. I would like to thank Gary for making this piece possible. Professional and prompt throughout the whole process, we here at Heads up North really do appreciate the time and effort put in to work with us, so thank you Gary. We look forward to seeing what you have in store for us for the rest of 2023.

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Dire Thorns are a young masked, bilingual Nu-Death Metal band from Lincolnshire, UK. If you’re looking for something immensely heavy and unique then these guys may be for you. Since 2021 the band have been gigging across the UK, and even though they are mostly DIY they have just recently joined Gary Mcintosh’ roster and have performed alongside bands such as Luna’s Call and Thrashatouille. Dire Thorns new EP State of Sikosis was released on 26th May 2023 and is available to stream on Spotify now.

So, I’ve decided to review the first two single releases from the EP. Super excited, so let’s see what the Lincolnshire lads have in store for us…

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The first track I’m going to look at is ‘Nasha Strana’. This is the first song that vocalist Jake McCabe and Drummer Joe Sellars wrote together. It was written as somewhat an abbreviation of their political standpoint, primarily their distain towards the English Conservative Party. Now it needs to be noted that these guys are bilingual, so it goes without saying that some of the lyrics to their track are actually in Russian. Due to this there are also references to the Putin regime in Russia. In Jakes words “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.” There may be some very strong views in this track but I feel they are given courtesy in the way they are presented.

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I really like the intro as it builds up gradually before the vocals kick in. ‘Nasha Strana’ is a very heavy song, however it does lighten up slightly one minute seventeen seconds in when the lyrics switch to Russian. I feel doing this gives the track a nice twist and really shows who the band are on a personal level, also the is quite unique!

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Now the second track I have chosen to review is ‘Flesh (Hit the Panic)’. This single was release on April 14th 2023 and it caught my attention as it actually has a stop motion music video to accompany it. Created by vocalist Jake McCabe he says ‘I Just kind of worked out how to do stop motion because I felt like it.’ Personally, I especially enjoyed the Morph references with the playdoh melting and re-moulding itself. The video is totally different from anything I have recently seen and gives off a Korn nostalgia feel to it. I think it gives the band quite a professional edge as well to put in so much hard work into one track, although this does give us high expectations for future vids.

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On first listening to ‘Flesh (Hit the Panic)’ you can really feel that the guys had loads of fun with this one. It’s much lighter than their other tracks that it has quite a jumpy rhythm to it. I love the opening line, ‘I see you around Sight was lost and then re-found Neuron activation of the deepest kind I feel it pound So bounce, baby bounce!’ The track really turns into, what I would say, is a Korn influenced track one minute and fifty-four seconds in with the Jonathan Davis type singing of the lines ‘Living a picture Beating this thicker Flesh growing richer I'll beat it down Take back the crown’. In a sense this can be viewed as kind of a chorus to the track as it is repeated again later on at two minutes twenty-nine seconds.

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Jake McCabe describes this track as “a fun song with lots of panic chords and some of the coolest riffs that I've ever written.” You know what, alongside the video, I must say I think it’s pretty cool. I’m really loving the Korn vibes here!

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So, there you have it, the hard-core metal heads Dire Thorns from a Heads up North perspective. Now I’d like to personally thank vocalist Jake McCabe for all his help and support in putting this piece together. You’ve been amazing, Thank you!

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