Thirty years of activity, dozens of releases, countless splits, and above all, music that is difficult to mistake for anything else. Over the years, Throneum have developed their own language — brutal, chaotic and uncompromising, yet far less predictable than it might seem at first glance. Although “Mutiny of Death” and “Bestial Antihuman Evil” have permanently established themselves in the band’s history, Throneum have never settled for simply repeating what worked once before.
Six years after their last full-length album, the band return with “Love Is the Law But Death Is the Frame”. Once again, the new material shows that describing Throneum simply as old-school Death Metal doesn’t tell the whole story. Alongside the band’s trademark brutality, there are more elaborate and unconventional ideas, while at the same time it would be difficult to speak of any departure from their roots.
I spoke with Tomasz about thirty years of Throneum, changes in the band’s music, the long gap between albums, working without rehearsals, old recordings, his Time Before Time label, Giants Dwarfs And Black Holes, and why, after all these years, the most important thing is still doing exactly what you feel like doing.
Throneum have always been known primarily for their uncompromising approach and almost musical chaos. At the same time, “Love Is the Law But Death Is the Frame” comes as a surprise. You can still hear Throneum, but there are ideas here that I don’t think I would have expected from you before. After 30 years, is it easier for you to surprise yourselves, or do you consciously force yourselves to move beyond familiar patterns?
T: I never force myself to do anything. Quite the opposite. We have always done, are doing, and will continue to do only what we feel like doing, without looking at anyone else. I think that is precisely Throneum’s greatest strength. Throneum played and still plays Death Metal. From “Beyond The Numbers And Creatures” and “The Underground Storms Eternally”, through “Mutiny Of Death”, all the way to “Oh Death Oh Death…”, we have travelled through many different stylistic paths across these swamps, but we have always remained faithful to Death Metal.
“Love Is The Law…” is a direct continuation of the previous album. There are no elements here that we haven’t already used before. If someone expects us, after 30 years, to cash in on our past and copy ourselves by trying to record another “Bestial Antihuman Evil” or “Death Throne Entities”, they are seriously mistaken. We have always given the middle finger. Nothing has changed in that respect. Throneum has always been uncompromising and kicks you in the ass. I just reach for different means of expression from time to time.
“Love Is The Law…” is your first full-length album in six years. This is the longest gap between full-lengths in your history, and there has also been a long break from playing live. What was behind this silence?
T: I haven’t lived in Poland for 11 years, so running a “normal band” is practically impossible in terms of time and logistics. Besides, financially it simply doesn’t make any sense. Anyway, between 2020 and 2026 I recorded and produced five full-length albums. By the end of 2026, the sixth album will be finished. I am still very active musically and as a live musician — just not under the Throneum banner.
And what caused that silence to end? I find it hard to believe that it was simply a burst of activity for the anniversary.
T: Throneum was and is active. It’s just that everything works according to somewhat different rules today than it did 20 or 30 years ago. Diabolizer really wanted to record another album, and since I had some health problems last year and spent longer periods on sick leave, I decided to use that time and devoted part of it to the new Throneum album. It had nothing to do with the anniversary.
“Eve-Salome-Judith-Rehab” is probably one of the most twisted and progressive moments in Throneum’s history. Do you see this track as a one-off experiment, or as a direction you would like to explore further?
T: I have no idea what direction I’ll explore in the future. Either way, it will definitely be Death Metal. I have Giants Dwarfs And Black Holes for all the other musical directions.
I don’t know if “Eve-Salome-Judith-Rehab” is the most twisted thing we’ve done. There are also some interesting things happening in “The True Story”. Besides, compared to the songs on “Oh Death, Oh Death…”, the structures on the new album have become considerably simpler. The previous album has only three tracks, with one of them reaching 15 minutes. This time we have six songs, and only one barely exceeds ten minutes — “Eve-Salome-Judith-Rehab”.
But you’re right, it is definitely an unconventional track. In our case, though, if you look at the last two albums, it doesn’t really stand out that much from the rest.
Anyway, narrow-minded thinking about music — not only within the metal scene — doesn’t interest me at all. I cut myself off from that years ago. Throneum plays Death Metal, and true old-school Death Metal in the style of the 1990s!
I mostly listen almost exclusively to things like Pestilence, Nocturnus, Pan-Thy-Monium, Carbonized, Messiah, Disembowelment, or, closer to home, Tenebris, Violent Dirge, Sparagmos and Nostradamus. Does anyone even remember that fantastic band from Podlasie? These are bands that created something, had their own style and weren’t afraid to experiment. It has all been done before.
Also, you won’t find any triggers, quantization, reamping, recording parts separately and stitching together the best takes here. Everything was recorded practically live. If someone associates old school only with Autopsy, Blasphemy or Grave… that’s not my problem.
What do you regret most about your 30 years on the scene? And what are you most proud of?
T: I have never regretted anything, and I don’t regret anything now. The fact that at 47 I’m still giving the world the middle finger.
You recently released a massive three-disc compilation celebrating Throneum’s 30th anniversary. What caught my attention was the fact that you included quite a lot of covers — from The Stooges to Incantation and Marduk. What did you want to say about Throneum through that selection, if you wanted to say anything at all?
T: I didn’t want to say anything. Over the years we accumulated quite a few covers that we recorded for various occasions. I think an anniversary release is a good opportunity to sum them up somehow and put them all together.
You are the only person who has been in the band since the beginning. To what extent do you see yourself today as the guardian of its identity, and to what extent do you want the other musicians to have the freedom to change it?
T: I’m not a guardian, and the last thing that interests me is identity, schematic thinking and putting things into boxes. I write the riffs, come up with the structures and put everything together, while Diabolizer creates the drum parts for it. Even though we don’t rehearse at all, we form a very tight and complementary duo. Nobody needs to tell or suggest anything to anyone.
If we were to talk about a guardian, then in Throneum it is definitely Diabolizer. Without him, I probably wouldn’t be answering this interview today.
Over these three decades, Throneum have developed quite a cult following in the underground. Do you think that if you had started several years later, you would still have managed to achieve that kind of status?
T: What if we hadn’t been from Poland, but from Norway or Sweden, and had recorded our first demo not in ’98 but in ’88?
You have quite a few splits in your discography. Obviously, it’s a cult format and one of the foundations of the underground. Is there any band you would have dreamed of doing a split with? And did you often turn down offers to release splits?
T: I definitely turned down a few, but more often it was for logistical and time-related reasons than stylistic differences, although I’m sure there were cases where that was also a factor. I don’t remember. There was a lot — a lot — of movement in the Throneum camp, and something was always brewing. You can’t keep track of all of it anymore, and I never kept a diary.
Anyway, we are currently preparing a split with Nekkrofukk, and it’s going to be fire again! I also recently talked to Mike from Cianide, and both bands are definitely interested in doing a joint release. Whether it will actually happen is another question, considering how long it takes us to get around to everything. They’re not getting any younger either. Cianide are currently working on another album. I’m very curious about it.
Everything I dreamed of as a teenager, I have achieved. I don’t dream anymore. I act.
More and more bands in their later years — or for anniversaries — decide to re-record their old material. Is there any Throneum album or demo that you think could be recorded again, or is it a case of never stepping into the same river twice?
T: Maybe something like that could be done, but why? I would definitely remix and reproduce several of our old releases, but unfortunately I don’t have most of the individual tracks anymore, so they will probably remain as they are.
If I manage to recover the tracks from “CacoMetamorphosen”, I’ll send them to Diabolizer so he can finally record some proper drums for it, haha. But whether we’ll actually feel like doing it, I can’t promise. It’s just a spontaneous idea.
I would definitely like to remix and reproduce “Oh Death Oh Death…” one day, because that album definitely deserves better treatment and sound.
Apart from that, I don’t remember 95 percent of the songs I composed. I would have to learn them all over again to record them, and I simply don’t have the time or desire to do that.
You also ran a record label, Time Before Time. What was the most difficult and what was the most rewarding part of being a label owner? Were there any labels you regarded as a model?
T: The most difficult thing was the complete lack of time. I have been professionally active since finishing university. In Poland I worked in a mine, 1,000 metres underground — total underground. Ten to eleven hours a day, six or seven days a week. That’s how things were back then.
When you combine that with a band, a family, a house you’re renovating and a record label, you don’t even have time to go out for a beer or read a book. That’s why after ten years I suspended Time Before Time’s activities.
I have no role models or idols. Well, maybe Socrates, but only methodologically. I am my own reference point.
Through Time Before Time, you had contact with music not only as a musician, but also as someone deciding what was worth releasing. Did running a label change the way you evaluate your own music?
T: No. Thanks to Time Before Time, I know how everything works from the inside, but it has nothing to do with evaluating music or understanding it.
Since “The Tight Deathrope Act Over Rubicon”, each subsequent album cover has featured more and more colours. Was this a deliberate attempt to break away from the black-and-white imagery so strongly associated with you, or is it simply a coincidence that someone happened to ask about years later?
T: It was definitely deliberate. The title of that album alone says it all. There is no coincidence or accidental connection here.
I don’t like formulas, and I was honestly irritated by all the attempts to put Throneum into boxes. Throneum plays Death Metal, and that is the only category that has never changed and that we have imposed on ourselves.
I grew up on Death Metal. It was the most important music of my early years, and Throneum is a testament to that and a reflection of it. That will never change either. That’s why “Death” will be in the title of every full-length Throneum album.
But if we ever want to have a pink cover, it will be pink.
After 30 years, Throneum have developed their own set of associations and myths. Is there something people simply get wrong about your music or the way the band operates?
T: Throneum is not just “Mutiny Of Death” and “Bestial Antihuman Evil”. I’m proud of those releases. With them, we redefined brutal, furious Death Metal throughout the underground. I’m aware of that.
But Throneum is not only those two releases, and some people try to associate us exclusively with them. Our discography also includes “The Underground Storms Eternally”, a demo which, despite all its rawness, is very progressive, and “Deathcult Conspiracy”, which is very classic.
The latest albums form a kind of split between all these different sides. I have also expanded our means of expression with elements that aren’t “Death Metal”, which in my opinion doesn’t diminish the message of this music in any way — quite the opposite. It makes it even more twisted, but there is actually nothing here that hasn’t appeared somewhere in our music before.
Either way, this is music that is painfully sincere. It was, it is, and it will be!
One of the things I often think about when listening to Throneum is how hard it is to believe that you have a project that is so stylistically different. After all these years of playing extreme music, how do you feel about Giants Dwarfs And Black Holes? Which of these two poles of your creativity is closer to the music you actually listen to on a daily basis?
T: I feel fantastic precisely because it is so stylistically different. I have always listened to a lot of different music. Thirty years ago it was primarily Death Metal, but King Crimson, Budgie and Black Sabbath were always on my shelf as well.
Over time, my centre of gravity shifted more towards early-’70s rock, but it’s still the same shelf.
Giants Dwarfs And Black Holes differs from Throneum in that I don’t impose any rules on myself at all. With this band, you can literally expect anything. At the moment it’s Heavy Psych Acid Prog Rock.
That kind of music presents completely different challenges — but that’s exactly what makes it so attractive. I finally learned to play guitar for Giants Dwarfs And Black Holes, haha.
Thanks a lot for the interview. The final word is yours. What would you like to say to the readers of Oldschool Metal Maniac?
T: Thank you very much for the interview and the great questions. It was a pleasure.
In closing, I can only recommend our new album, “Love Is the Law But Death Is the Frame”. Especially to everyone who enjoys old, unconventional Death Metal and an unrestricted form of expression.
Unlike all the post-black and other modern “inventions”, this still has fire and demons under its skin!
This is Throneum!
Interview by Wojciech Michalak
Foto Live NecronosferatuS
