The name conjures up mental images of ‘studded and tattooed up to the eyeballs’ amateur metal wannabees with a small but loyal underground following. The name in fact belongs to a fresh and innovative Indie band fairly new to the Swindon music scene (hoorah at last), with a view to changing the tried and tested Indie genre and having a damn good time on the way. Don’t get me wrong, the riffs and beats that emanate from Thorne are as sharp as the name suggests. But when you hear them you’ll be far from covering your ears in sheer horror. Thorne offer mainstream and upbeat songs such as Virus: a hard-hitting tune with a memorable bass intro, and Concrete Jungle: a riff that doesn’t sound like anything you’ve heard before. Forged from the broken remains of the former obscure band ‘Seeing with Blind Eyes’ (lead by Chris Povey), lead guitarist Damien Phillips and drummer James Doran pulled their socks up and decided to create a more commercial sound. They called upon old time friend Richard Webb and Steve Jackson to help with this task. However, the result was far from commercial. The rawness of Rich’s bass, the obscurity of Damien’s riffs, the rapid ness of James drums and the meaningfulness of Steve’s lyrics made something that is quite different from many local, unsigned bands. Bands like Hot, Hot heat, The Heys and The Hour who follow a new breed of pop/Indie. Thorne stand their ground with solid legends of rock and roll such as Oasis and the Manic Street Preachers (Thorne do a powerful cover of ‘A Design for Life’ may I hasten to add). And appropriately, the band frequently supports ‘The Jam’ tribute band: Wildwood. And accomplished, mature band that play as tight as a duck’s arse, not to mention as slick. We salute this four-piece band that take us back to our roots of the early nineties. We put them up against the Swindon gems that are: Belarus, Satellite 17 and Buswell. And we watch them scribe their name on the impenetrable success list. I URGE you to check these guys out NOW!