Heavy as a heavy thing – that is the best way to describe Thou from Baton Rouge.
They steamrollered into my ears during the cursed pandemic with their magnificent collaboration project “May Our Chambers Be Full”. The question I had at the time was how I would feel about Thou without the beatific larynx of Emma Ruth Rundle to balance out the brutality. Of course, I remained bowled over by their other releases and still find myself bellowing along to the covers on “A Primer of Holy Words” (Spin the black Circle is a current fave) and the monsters on “Magus” and “Hightower”. The latter is a killer compilation and I recommend to anyone – “Fucking Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean” will bludgeon you and, once it ends, go check out the band who took their name from the track.
That was then. This is now. Thou return to Sacred Bones with their first full length solo album of original material in 6 years and it is everything I had hoped it would be.
For the uninitiated Thou take the heavy, filth ridden sound of sludge (think Weedeater, Bongzilla and Eyehategod and run it through a filter of 90’s grunge and hardcore punk.
This is angry music for pissed off people just a little slower. There is no sitting back and sparking up with these bastards.
Before I even hit play I am struck by the album cover- a black and white photograph of a small boy in a door way holding an orchid. The image evokes a gritty sadness. The flower made me think of death – his downcast face appears resigned. A quick google tells me that orchids can signify fertility, hope and love as well as “many children”. “Umbilical” – the provider of sustenance and sometimes the accidental and tragic garrotte.
This album is everything I hoped it would be. The opening salvo of “Narcissist’s Prayer“ and “Emotional Terrorist” are a one-two of heavy riffing bombast that still retain plenty of hooks to keep me humming them at the end. Is that a violin string or feedback that pierces the opener before the “It’s time to die refrain? Who knows but it grabbed my attention and then had me gurning to the rest of the track. “Emotional Terrorist” sounds like anger hawked up from the throat of a coal miner. Proper pissed off punky rotten rock n roll.
Of course, as I pointed out earlier, Thou have many facets and strings to their bow. Spreading despair and illustrating the futile bleakness of the human condition is definitely one. “Lonely Vigil” is exactly that. A giant grey bonesaw to hope and all that is good. I love it but am glad it is only 3 minutes long.
Bereft of laughter “House of Ideas” sideswipes me like an out of control artic. A barrage of drums thunders over a jagged riff and Bryan Funck’s unmistakeably maniacal vocal. Filled with feedback and a tribal groove this pummelled me!
There is a real grungy dare I say alt rock vibe to the next track “I Feel Nothing When You Cry” . Beneath the harsh vocals I get a real early Smashing Pumpkins ethereal vibe – Gish era. Massive wall of guitars in here . “Unbidden Guest “ and “I return as chained and bound to you” have big Post Hardcore vibes to ‘em . The former is jagged and snarling with gnashing teeth whilst the latter is full of melancholy and a strange romance. The drums in particular evoked a visceral sadness in me as I listened. Odd almost. Plucked at my heartstrings. Swine! Reminded me of Kowloon Walled City and how they grab me .
Luckily “The Promise” gets me back off the floor. It’s a post punk rocker that I even heard some early New Model Army vibes in. Again, the drums are awesome in this – they feel so warm and magnificent atop the vicious riffs and tormented vocals.
Did I mention Grunge? “Panic Stricken, I flee” has a soupcon of Alice In Chains in there and is hooky as a barbed wire condom before lurching into a gargantuan sludge breakdown.
Great things must end to, and what an ending. From the feedback intro to a riff the size of an iceberg “Siege Perilous” smacks down the earth on my psyche as it is buried beneath Sabbathesque riffs and brutality.
Wherefore art Thou? At the top of my album of the year list mother trucker.
(9.5/10 Matt Mason)
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