Exclusive Album Stream: Throwing Bricks Find Light at the End of a Pitch Black Tunnel on The Burden
Since the beginning, if you wanted a piece of music that was full of despair and hopelessness, you went to metal. Unafraid of the dark and down parts of life, the genre explores some of humanity’s hardest emotions and lays them bare for everybody to witness. In Throwing Bricks’ latest album The Burden, that despair and lack of hope are just some of the facets that make the record a unique listen.
Thanks to their adherence to the deep, brooding sound of sludge metal while tossing in some hardcore for taste, songs like “False Promises” and “The Burden/Noose” create a huge soundscape that paints a picture of despair, while the final track “Find My Way Out” uses some black metal-esque instrumentation to strip naked the raw feeling in the music.
“The Burden isn’t about darkness and sadness itself, but about processing and coping with those feelings. There’s always a lot of negative stuff going on, both on a personal and global scale. You’d better try to make the best of it, which of course is easier said than done. Music seems to help a lot of people, us for sure. Finding something positive in situations that seem hopeless and desperate at first is a theme in our music.”
According to the band, The Burden is their “most diverse and complete body of work to date. Not only musically, but as a whole.”
“The additional spoken word parts by our dear friend Shira and the artwork by great photographer Daantje Bons truly make this a product of the scene we have going on in Utrecht.
“We’ve completely embraced our musical influences this time around. There is more screamo, black metal and post-hardcore indebted in our sound than ever before. The heaviness of sludge and post-metal that’s present in our previous releases isn’t lost though.”
Despite the heavy material found in The Burden, Throwing Bricks said they were able to enjoy the writing and recording process.
“Although The Burden covers some intense subjects like loss, it was actually really fun to make. Which, quite honestly, is the whole point of making music for us. Producer Tim de Gieter really brought out the best in all of us. He was a big help in rearranging/rewriting certain parts and giving the album the sound it truly needs. We had the most fun two weeks of the whole pandemic in his studio.
“We feel like The Burden represents a new chapter for us as a band. A change we’re really looking forward to. It’s not a coincidence the album ends with ‘Find My Way Out,’ although it can be extremely hard to find, there’s always a light to be found in the darkness.”
You can check out the entire album stream for The Burden below. The album drops on October 28, though it can be preordered today via Tartarus Records.
