Thorgrim is still a new band, formed in 2023 in Wisconsin, but Puca doesn’t sound like something carefully assembled by a young group trying to prove itself. If anything, it sounds like the opposite: a band deliberately avoiding polish at every possible turn.
Recorded live with no edits, no click track, no attempt to smooth anything out, Puca leans hard into that “leave everything in” philosophy. Every slip, every uneven transition, every rough edge stays exactly where it landed. That’s not an accident, but it’s the whole point of the record.
Musically, Thorgrim sits somewhere between doom, punk, and a rough edge of black metal, and sometimes closer to sludge or underground doom rock, depending on which side of the sound stands out more. Some moments lean into slow, dragging doom way, then sudden shifts into punk-like bursts or noisier, harsher sections that echo black metal’s rawness.
The overall feel of the album is where opinions start to split. Some hear it as an intentionally “warts and all” approach - a raw, almost live rehearsal energy captured without interference. Others hear the same thing as a lack of control, where songs fall apart instead of holding tension. Both readings come from the same source: nothing here is tightened or corrected.
"Children of Doom" sets that tone immediately, not easing the listener in so much as dropping them straight into the band’s unfiltered approach. "Darkest Days" strips things down to something bleak and repetitive, while "Death Angel" pulls from a more classic doom direction, even if it never fully settles into it.
There’s more variation than it might seem at first. "The Movies" brings in a more direct, punk-like energy, while "Dark Cabin" shifts toward a stripped-back, almost acoustic detour that feels disconnected on purpose. The longer (10-minute-long) "Journey to Saturn" drags things outward into something more minimal and stretched, while "Bride of Frankenstein" and "Blood of Life" push further into experimental and folk-leaning territory.
The problem, depending on how you hear it, is that this looseness doesn’t always translate into cohesion. Riffs repeat longer than they develop, transitions can feel abrupt rather than deliberate, and the lack of structure sometimes works against the atmosphere instead of supporting it.
At the same time, there’s a certain stubborn consistency in how far Thorgrim commits to the idea. This isn’t half-raw or selectively rough, it’s fully unfiltered from start to finish. The album doesn’t break character because it never tries to step outside it.
Puca ends up being one of those records where the intent is obvious, but the result depends entirely on how much patience you have for that kind of execution. If you’re looking for something refined, it’s not here. If you’re willing to sit with something rough, inconsistent, and deliberately unpolished, there’s at least a clear sense that Thorgrim knows exactly what they’re doing, even if it doesn’t always land.
https://www.facebook.com/therealthorgrim
Thanks to Grand Sounds PR.
