Orchid Throne - Buried In Black

Orchid Throne is a one-man melodic death/doom band from Baltimore, Maryland who hit the scene with a demo in 2024. After releasing another demo, the band has graced us with their full-length debut “Buried In Black.” The musician behind this project/band is Nicholas Bonsanto, also from Barren and Empress.

The band’s ability to go from being as gentle as a breeze on a cool fall night to outright fast as hell fury is something to be commended. The songs do a lot, yet they don’t do anything they don’t need to be doing.  As they go through passages of clean instrumentals and cleans to blackened passages and all the way back down to crushing doom, the feeling of completeness was always there.   There just isn’t any fluff on this album even though it is stuffed to the brim. 

This album is quite dynamic, especially for a doom metal album.  It has 7 songs and a run time of nearly 55 minutes so there is an abundance of time for these songs to present themselves.  The flow of the album makes its length easily digestible; the album is capped by its two longest songs with the ‘short’ ones in the middle.

The production is fantastic and balances all the instruments equally.  Even when a thousand things are going, I can still hear the bass and I absolutely love that.  Bass is the most important instrument in metal, or at least it should be.  So many bands, even doom ones who obviously need a low end, bury it in the mix but not this album.

The first song “Dreamworld,” is the longest at 13:56.  It begins with light, clean keys before a massive riff hit like a wave.  The clean keys keep layering on the atmosphere and then clean vocals rise above it all with some melodic, clean guitar acting in a subtle but effective way.  It’s a really beautiful build up; I appreciate long intros like this in doom.  Blackened death vocals join into the fray, chaos and control hitting all at once.  

“What Defines Us,” is a banger of a song with memorable lead guitar and tight drumming.  The vocals are great, an extreme attack leading the charge while heavy guitars and melodic base crash together.  The chorus is catchy as hell, the clean singing very effective and making the extreme vocals all the more potent when they return.  The solo at the 4:58 mark is a great way to end the song as it fades out.

“Guilt” takes a different path with its Gothic overtones and highly atmospheric approach.  The keys and clean guitars push the whispered vocals into a low, deep tone as the song swirls together with distorted riffs and powerful drums.  This song is short and simple but a nice little break in between the songs.

The final song, “With Promise,” is my favorite on the album and perfectly ends the journey.  The drumming is atmospheric in the beginning, deep bass that generates a rumble that threatens to break it all down even as everything builds up. Slow, groovy riffs and extreme vocals line the first quarter of the song before it breaks down into a wonderful acoustic passage.  Afterwards, the song completely switches gears and turns into black metal before settling back into melodic death/doom.  

Orchid Throne’s “Buried In Black,” is an early year surprise hit for me and definitely an interesting approach to the genre.   It’s adventurous in a subtle way, not afraid to be very melodic or aggressive so it has something for everyone, even those who normally don’t like doom (what’s wrong with you?).  

Rating: Excellent