Throneberry

(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)

In Cincinnati (Ohio), from the ashes of the Liquid Hippos, authors of the album Shellac The Bozac (Ultrasuede, 1988), two bands emerged: Love Cowboys led by Jordan Arbenz, who released two albums, notably Broth (Ultrasuede, 1992), in which hardcore marries funk and folk, and Throneberry led by his brother Jason. The latter, accompanied by Paul Cavins (bass, also a former Hippos member), Steve McCabe (drums), and Sam Womelsdorff (guitar), recorded the 1993 single Touched (Alias), a dark melody sinisterly punctuated by unsettling guitar figures, in which he distinguished himself as a fellow traveler of Greg Dulli (Afghan Whigs).

A perversely epic drive animates the compositions of Sangria (Alias, 1994). Arbenz adopts the pose of a “young Werther” afflicted by every kind of existential crisis, but his psychic catastrophes are reincarnated in melodic songs on the edge of folk-rock (Calliope, arranged in a classical style) or 1960s soul (Green Goddess, somewhere between Family and Van Morrison). The atmosphere of tragedy sometimes spills into elaborate art-rock (the cascades of iridescent chords in Off The Ground) and at other times into raw and vigorous soul-rock (the title track).

Perhaps the most melodic of the Cincinnati school, Throneberry owe much to Arbenz’s versatile vocal range.

The band dissolved after the disappointing Trot Out The Encores (Alias, 1996), its Hooray For Everything being the last worthy song.