UK band THINE was formed way back in 1993, and launched their debut album five years later. Come 2002 and their second disc “In Therapy” arrived, a production that apparently made quite the impression back then. But following this initial spell Thine disappeared for a while as far as releasing new material goes, but in 2014 they returned with their third album “The Dead City Blueprint”, released through UK label Peaceville Records.
The press releases for this CD describes Thine as a dark progressive rock band. While they most likely does fit within a progressive rock context of some kind or other due to the structural qualities of their material, this isn’t an album that is likely to draw in that audience by default however, and most certainly not those with an avid fascination and interest in vintage progressive rock. Thine is a band that creates music with a much broader scope than that, and one I suspect have it’s prime foundations placed in somewhat different territories altogether.
The overall mood and atmosphere on this dis is a dark one however, that is undeniable. Dark as in melancholic, as in sad, as in brooding and as in ominous. The word bleak might be used to further stress the emotional associations that comes with these songs, if someone ever needs a soundtrack for a movie chronicling a world without hope quite a few songs here would be a rather good choice to just that. You’ll have to look extremely hard to find any material that might be described as positive and uplifting on this occasion, and if you do so it will most likely be due to having a mental condition you should be concerned about rather than any hidden moments of positive music as far as this album goes. Presumably there is a reason for the band opting for “The Dead City Blueprint” as the name of this disc, and as far as such details go I’ll have to say that this is one of the more aptly named productions I have encountered.
In terms of the music itself, it’s on one hand fairly easy to describe, yet strangely hard to do so in a manner that is actually informative. Roughly described we’re resented to three subtly different types of composition: We have the ballads, where the acoustic guitars is central, with piano or keyboard details as occasional support, sometimes with a darker or harder edged guitar riff detail flavoring the proceedings. Then we have the songs that opens up in a frail manner and then shifts over to a dark, harder edged sound residing somewhere in the borderlands between hard rock and metal. And then there’s the tracks that alternates between the gentler ballad-oriented sequences and the harder edged, more-or-less metal oriented hard rock constructions. For the latter two piano and keyboards are also occasionally used to add a softer tinge to the arrangements, and just about always there will be an acoustic guitar at hand supporting the riff based sequences with a gentler, frail undercurrent. As detailed as this description may (or for some may not) look, it still doesn’t reveal to much about the music itself. I might add that dampened guitar solo details are utilized extensively to add haunting, melodic flavors to just about all varieties of these arrangements, that lead vocalist Gaunt has a quiet desperation in his voice as a just about everpresent feature, and still there is just so much happening here, mostly at a subtle and detailed level, that this just isn’t as revealing as it may appear.
I will readily admit that as far as similarities go, Thine is a band that leaves me blank, at least as far as direct comparisons go. The blend of acoustic and electric guitars may have some slight similarities to later day Porcupine Tree and possibly Steven Wilson as a solo artist, but personally I found myself thinking about bands such as The Mission and The Cult to a grater extent. Some of the songs contains some US-sounding details that made me think of old 80’s heroes Wall of Voodoo, and the gentler passages also brought a band like REM to mind on occasion. Other occasional associations I got were mid 80’s Rush and Molly Hatchet. None of the bands I’ve name dropped have any distinct or dominant leads into the musical landscape explored by Thine however, these are associations born from encountering small and most often minute details here and there and shouldn’t be read as direct or indirect comparisons as such.
It all adds up to an impressive album however. Perhaps a tad uniform in overall style, mood and atmosphere, where words like dark and bleak can be sued fairly extensively, but fairly often also beautiful. There is a certain beauty also in landscapes of that kind, and Thine do know how to capture that beauty. This is also a fairly accessible production as such ventures go, an album that doesn’t conjure up sonic challenges or technical puzzles that needs to be decoded for the listener to be able to enjoy the contents. It is an immediate production, but also a production that contains enough details to reward the avid listener playing this disc over and over again. A very well made album, as long as you have a taste for hard rock with some metal touches that hones in on moods and atmospheres of the darker variety, and also sophisticated enough to be of interest to progressive rock fans with an interest in productions of that kind.
My rating: 88/100
