Fjord Fuzz unleashes Mighty and Versatile Wild-Card Thor Lightning-Storm Gated Fuzz

This is instantly one of my favourite fuzzes - right up there with Fjord Fuzz’s own Gjallarhorn - where it overlaps a little with some of its tones - but it has a lot more variety and versatility onboard, It’s somewhat reminiscent of the Shift-Line Termofuzz also.

Daniel wants this to be an experimental journey for you - so that you need to investigate the outer reaches of the pedal’s abilities yourself. The only control I’m allowed to mention by name is the top ’Volume’ control - which does impact the overall sound also as you crank it up. The other two knobs must largely remain a secret - while you get a vast gamut of tones and textures by varying the impact of the second and third knobs - it’s highly apt that the pedal has a lighting bolt as its symbol - as the first word that comes to mind to describe the mood of this pedal is ’Elemental’.

I decided quite early on that I would name the 2nd and 3rd controls Sturm and Drang - from that German phrase - and supporting the elementa + lightning storml theme. As two of the controls were going to be Germanic - it made sense to label the volume also - which is very suitably labelled ’Stark’ for my take here.

The 2nd and 3rd controls are very unusual in that they sound like a mix of bias, filter and gain control all-in-one - and you do get natural gating via the biasing presumably This Thor Fuzz delivers the most incredible range of Fuzz flavours - which though at its core starts off as a kind of 3-Transistor (Silicon) Tone Bender MKII. It covers Drone, Gated, Sputtery, Foghorn, Percolating Engine, Classic, Harmonic Octave, Searing, and Oscillating tones among myriad other varieties and textures. While the dial-in can be a little challenging at times - as all 3 controls are incredibly interactive.

The easiest tones to dial in are with ’Stark’ on Full, ’Sturm’ all the way back, and ’Drang’ on full - that gives you a pretty potent full-on searing sound.

If you dial the 2nd & 3rd controls almost all the way back - it needs to be fine-tuned by ear - you get a really cool sputtery / percolating sort of broken diesel engine sound - on my pedal that occurs with Sturm @ c. 9 o’c, and Drang @ c. 8 o’c.

It’s almost millimetric in how quickly the tones and textures vary and change across those two dials - and a lot of the time you’re doing safe-cracker-like teeny tiny adjustments - to get the perfect tonality to snap into place!

This is for sure a wild and wonderful ride of a fuzz - one for the proper fuzz fans - it will be too much to handle for many. Daniel suggests you can tame it through pushing it into another overdrive - while I’m all about the full unfettered fuzz sound - and this pedal is incredibly lively - with a dangerously addictive personality - tempering the fuzz is for wimps! You need to ride the whirlwind / or lightning storm - or whatever metaphor is appropriate - this one is so much fun - that cannot be denied!

You can literally spend days with this pedal - fine-tuning in different settings to create new sounds and textures. Weird and Wonderful is the other phrase of the day - this is a weapon’s grade experimental fuzz for sure! But if your incredibly diligent and dextrous - you can tease out classic fuzz tones too!

Andertons describe it as a ’Gated’ Fuzz - but it’s so much more - one for the brave and fearless! Absolutely my favourite kind of fuzz! And it can be yours for just $199 via the Fjord Fuzz Webstore, and £229 courtesy of Andertons in the UK (not yet in stock!) - it should be available fairly widely at launch. This Thor delivers extraordinary bang for your buck - but it will be too much to handle for some - in terms of its raw and visceral output prowess!

The Thor is available in Space Grey and Hendrix Red Editions - as you can see below!