Orchid Throne “Buried in Black”
Nicholas Bonsanto has been delivering creative and dynamic material throughout his musical career. From the work he’s done with progressive/symphonic act Empress, the atmospheric and folk-influenced Lör, to the death/doom work of Barren with Andrew Campbell. Now, Bonsanto is delivering his first new project, his own one-man death/doom project in Orchid Throne. Infusing gothic metal elements into his vision of melodic death/doom, Bonsanto aims to deliver a unique project that truly embodies his own musical vision and an album that truly stands out amongst his other works. An album that finally opens the floodgates to all the creative ideas and message that Bonsanto wanted to deliver with specifically with Orchid Throne.
Album opener “Dreamworld” opens the album with beautiful piano, before crushing guitar chugs and hanging strums create atmosphere and dread on this thirteen and a half-minute opening track. Channeling a post-metal/funeral doom aesthetic from the opening moments akin to Katatonia in their transition phase from death/doom to gothic metal. As Bonsanto’s vocals hang in the ether with his cleans, his growls begin to peer through the miasma of the mix, though lower in the mix and sometimes can be buried beneath the huge scale of the musical production. His somber, melancholic cleans fit the sound and tone of the music perfectly. And the evolution and scale of the musical arrangement really creates a cinematic pacing as the deep, guttural growls and heaviness pierces through and picks up the pacing. Really giving an uneasy, Portal like vocal delivery over a combination of melo-death and funeral doom with it’s slow down/speed-up pacing. An encapsulating piece of genre-mixing, creative and storytelling peaks and valleys and just pure doomy, sludgy heaviness. Bringing together comparisons of Swallow The Sun, Opeth and Woods of Ypres in the sheer concept and perception.
“Ephemerality” continues the sheer grandeur in scale from the opening thuds of guitar and drums. The song is soaked in gothic metal in the eerie and dreary guitars, reverb-soaked vocals and tone of the instrumentation. With bass truly ringing through on the verses, adding a lively pulse to the dark and somber performance, before all hell comes loose on the chorus. Screaming highs and growls come roaring in, as clean, deep vocals peak through amongst the cacophony of unhinged growls. Creating an almost inner-battle in the listener’s head that Bonsanto seems to envision before blast beats, tremolo guitars and banshee screams just cascade over the listener into a classic OSDM sounding guitar and drum combo. A great embodiment of the death/doom genre that has a little bit of everything for fans of both genres.
I love the opening riff of “What Defines Us”. Really delivering that perfect, almost upbeat sounding death/doom sound that very few bands that nail in the genre. Leaning more towards the death metal genre, the song does bring a sheer heaviness with tinges of doom in some of the atmosphere and production that acts like Novembers Doom do. I do love the thundering, war-like drums near the halfway mark that segues into a pretty heavy riff that gets accented by Bonsanto’s clean vocals. Bringing almost tinges of djent and modern metal into the mirky waters of death metal, post-metal and doom.
On “Moonlight Revelry”, I LOVED the folky instrumentation in its opening moments. Bringing comparisons to Wardruna and Windir in it’s simplistic and reverb-heavy environment, before Bonsanto turns on the distortion and the riff comes forward in full force. With a sludgy, groove-heavy riff and drums, it had my head bobbing along and captures that up-tempo, sludge vibe like Baroness, but Bonsanto makes it darker and more unhinged with the transition of death/black metal vocals and almost Viking metal-esque guitar playing. Before switching back to clean vocals and that sludgy/stoner metal riff from the opening verses. The genre-blending is done so well with this album so far, which is my favorite thing as a listener because you never truly know where the track is going on first listen and keeps you entranced musically. And the closing addition with strings and choir like vocals amongst the hanging strums was a perfect close to the track.
“Guilt” has some beautiful synth pads over a rising guitar. Clean vocals begin to rise and grow amongst the presence of the synths. Delivering a feeling of sadness, longing and pure regret, the music matches the vocals and lyrical message in its scale and Bonsanto kicks the door in with pounding drums and a lead guitar section straight from the 80’s in it’s sheer shredding and guitar tone. With the song almost digging itself out of its dreary and dank hole to see the light and climb out of its spiral. Basking in the peace of the light with the acoustic guitar and vocals near the final moments of the song.
“Breath of Autumn” continues with the folk-inspired opening as the previous track. With the addition of the flute playing of Mary Beck. Giving the listener an almost intimate and peaceful reprieve from the sheer sonic journey the album has taken the listener on. Beautiful sounding acoustic guitar, and a gentle piano add little accents and flurries to Beck’s flute playing on this very angelic instrumental section.
The album closes with “With Promise”. And at almost thirteen minutes long, it aims to be a sheer grand conclusion to Orchid Throne’s debut. With powerful drum strikes kicking the song off, amongst soaring guitars that get carried under a bed of rhythm guitars, it truly adds an epic scale to the album’s finale. Featuring driving, straight forward death/doom, hopeful and atmospheric folk passages with Beck returning with her flute playing and piercing post-black metal sections, to shred-heavy thrash soloing, the song truly is a magnum opus to conclude this concerto of doom that is Orchid Throne’s debut.
With Buried in Black, Bonsanto took Orchid Throne to a place that helps it not only stand out amongst his other projects, but shows that it could be his best project. The sheer instrumentation and creativity he delivers in the project is just captivating and a deep, musical journey. With no moments of lapse or drag, he wasted no time in any of the songs and captured a perfect marriage of death/doom while also integrating folk, post-black metal, gothic and sludge metal. Orchid Throne is kicking off 2026 right with this release and I will be dying to hear what he does for a follow-up.
SCORE : 5 / 5
