To say ThaNever have had little publicity is probably an understatement. In fact as far as the reliable old Internet is concerned I have failed to find anything more than their official MySpace page and a review in Greek, their country of origin. So there is going to be little in the way of stories about their past and who stabbed who and what churches they burnt down or any of that malarkey here. Not that they are a black metal band in the slightest before I lead you down the wrong path. ThaNever describe themselves as rockers with influences of the 70s and 80s with a touch of punk. That is more or less in the right direction although it is the female fronted gothic punk bands of the late 80s early 90s where I would place them with.
There are 8 tracks and this runs for 30 minutes and is available on free distribution so sure if you arranged postage with band they would be happy to send it. ‘Central’ has a rock backbone to it and one that as with all the CD sounds incredibly dated. Not that this is necessarily bad as it suits the music and makes you head off on a bit of a trip down memory lane. There is a metal feel to this one think Joan Jett perhaps, singer Domina does not so much as sing as talk harmonically over her parts, the instrumentation is fine, nothing more, nothing less. ‘Forget’ has more of a punk-goth feel to it. I cannot help but think about some of the ladies who started their career on Crass Records as well as the sort of band that used to support the likes of Ghost Dance, Rose Of Avalanche etc circa 1988. Obviously there is bound to be a ballad and that is ‘Mother Saint,’ this one does actually give the vocalist scope to emote a bit more and this gives the song more of an energy which is certainly enforced by the musicians suddenly flying into a dash for a few seconds. Strongest number here is probably ‘Going Down’ it reminds a bit of Inkubus Sukkubus as it attempts to get the chorus embedded in your head with that tried and tested method of repetition.
To be brutally honest this is average stuff from a band who probably are not going to appeal to the masses. They are currently unsigned and on the strength of this I cannot particularly see the situation changing. I enjoyed this for what it was and they have some good songs such as ‘Lethal Smile’ which had they been in the UK 20 years ago would have got them on stage at one of our now long knocked down venues.
http://www.myspace.com/thanever
