What THORIUM has going for it is its ability to effectively use every wrench, nut, and bolt in Death Metal’s tool kit to build something consistently interesting.  On a single song, like “Diabolical Consumption,” the band throws in a break down, a solo, and double bass in rapid sucession.  This may seem like old hat for the often densely-packed songs of the genre, but there’s something to be said for doing it successfully.  THORIUM is able to assemble these pieces together into one coherent structure, preventing the album from becoming muddled or chaotic. 

Though the velocity on "Feral Creation" is usually the standard fast-paced Death Metal attack, songs such as “Gates Of Utumno” (hint for the uninitiated: Utumno was both a place in Mordor and a fortress in J.R.R. Tolkien’s legendarium, functioning as Hell) slow things down to a speed that begs for emphatic fist-pumping.  This section highlights the band’s compositional skills and makes the song one of the strongest of the album. 

This is pretty much the same strategy that bands such as BENIGHTED or even NON-HUMAN LEVEL (if one were to take the “Melo” out of their “Melo-Death”) have taken in the past few years, so the impact of THORIUM’s achievements is significantly lessened.  To be sure, it is a successful outing in the vein of other modern Death Metal acts, but it is probably not for people seeking something truly new, nor is it for anyone looking for old school Death Metal filthiness.  Still, this does not take away from the fact that "Feral Creation", from its doom-laden (and Doom-laden) into to its final track, does deliver.  

(Online August 17, 2008)