There has been a lot of hype surrounding The 3rd Attempt, a band whose lineup features past and current members of Carpathian Forest, Den Saakaldte and Midnattsvrede amongst others, so there was always going to be high expectations for their debut album Born In Thorns.
It’s a little difficult to quite know how to take Born In Thorns. There’s no denying that it’s an excellent album but on the other hand it is somewhat vanilla, with the same sort of format and style as a large amount of other bands out there, so it doesn’t really set The 3rd Attempt apart from all the other bands in the scene.
However, despite its lack of real identity, Born In Thorns is still a powerful listen. The vocals are very grim and murky-sounding, resulting in a tremendous tone atop of the instrumentation, which has an innate dark and mysterious feel to it, and highlights of the album include the hard-hitting Dark Vision, the powerful and classic-sounding title track and penultimate number Firestorm, which takes a lighter and more stripped-back approach at times.
There’s no doubt that The 3rd Attempt have created an album that will be well-received in many circles, but it does feel like the band has taken the ‘safe’ option this time round.
7/10
