Thou


(Copyright © 2012 Piero Scaruffi | Terms of use )
Tyrant (2007), 6.5/10
Peasant (2008), 6/10 (mini)
Summit (2010),
Heathen (2014), 7/10
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(Clicka qua per la versione Italiana)

Louisiana's prolific Thou, fronted by Bryan Funck, vomited the vitriolic hyper-doom metal of Tyrant (2007). Far from being simply a linear sequence of chords borrowed from Black Sabbath, these songs erupted primal emotions. Tyrant opens with guitar feedback and, along the way, gets turbulent and even frenzied; and I Was Ignored And Judged And Cast Down drips desperation,

The last two pieces would also be released as a separate EP, The Retaliation Of The Immutable Force Of Nature (2009): the glacial glitch-drone fest What Blood Still Flows From These Veins and the post-rock instrumental Acceptance.

The highlight of the mini-album Peasant (2008) is the eleven-minute An Age Imprisoned, a more orthodox and monolithic rumble with a lengthy droning coda, although the introduction of Burning Black Coals And Dark Memories would also remain memorable.

If Degradation of Human Life (2009), a split EP with Mohoram Atta, is indulgent and irrelevant, Our Enemy Civilization (2009), a split EP with Salome, contains the 12-minute The Song of Illuminate Darkness, one of their most vibrant rants but closed by an oneiric instrumental coda. War Is the Force That Gives Us Meaning (2011) was another split album, this time with Cower.

The four-song EP Baton Rouge You Have Much To Answer For (Robotic Empire, 2010) contains the nine-minute Baton Rouge Louisiana, which straddles the border between doom-metal and avantgarde music because it superimposes a sampled speech to an endless dirty drone.

The suffocating dirges of Summit (Gilead Media, 2010) moved even farther from the narcoleptic standard of doom-metal. By Endurance We Conquer is violent, catastrophic, barbaric. Grissecon is slightly more regal and martial, but with an equally dizzying, gargantuan, psychedelic finale. The eleven-minute Prometheus opens with cascading clusters of riffs and growls, but, after a brief pause, turns into a bluesy dance that sounds like a slower version of Led Zeppelin's How Many More Times.

The sprawling Heathen (Gilead Media, 2014) contains the 15-minute dense, droning, panzer-heavy Free Will, the thundering and anthemic Feral Faun, and the funereal, martial At The Foot Of Mount Driskill, Melody is metabolized in all sorts of forms here. The eerie intro and Emily McWilliams's convent-like hymn in Immortality Dictates are then picked up by Funck as a circular melody, almost a children's nursery rhyme. The procession peaks gloriously with the martial and implacable eleven-minute Ode To Physical Pain, the most emotionally powerful piece.

The EP Released From Love (2014) and You Whom I Have Always Hated (2015) were collaborations with Oregon's duo Body.

(Copyright © 2012 Piero Scaruffi | Terms of use )
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