Review Summary: Renouncement of sentimental frailty.
One needs a map and directions when navigating through Thou’s labyrinthine and vehemently diverse discography. While the band has had multiple mini-releases, compilations and collaborations with all kinds of artists you could imagine, they’ve only put out a handful of full length albums in their almost two decades of existence, which are all firm points of reference regarding their identity and evolution. Despite being a band with strong roots in pernicious, noisy sludge / doom metal, it would be a mistake to get into a work by Thou thinking that you know exactly what to expect. Yet, sixth full length “Umbilical” may possibly be one of the most straightforward records they have put out, pressing on direct heaviness and aggression rather than anything else.
Repulsion and loathing towards established social stratification has often been a focal point of the band’s disheartened textual work, and “Umbilical” is a tidbit more personal, as if Thou are now judging first and foremost themselves, and only then the rest of the world. As singer Bryan Funck gets the message across with his characteristic terrifying, painful vocals, a vile concoction of sludge / punk-ish / hardcore riffs is constantly being churned in middle or slow tempos and in an expressly forthright manner, making this a rather accessible album by Thou to go through, especially considering the band's past tendencies in some of their other releases. The tracks in “Umbilical” have a shorter runtime and a bolder attitude than some of the slower, monolithic pieces in, e.g. 2018’s “Magus”, and the new record’s charged volatility feels like the band is back in its furious teenage years, with minds less conscious on experimentation and more into bloodying their fists on the streets.
With such raw energy and sharp production, the album is quite effective in keeping the attention without actually being any milder in spirit. Thou put their influences on a stretcher, mix them up and carve out a more savage version all while maintaining a powerful negative aura throughout its whole duration. There’s so many infectious riffs in this record that will remind you of anything between Eyehategod and Crowbar to the Melvins and Nirvana, with hooks, twists and turns of persistent fierceness that make “Umbilical” an excellent sludge / doom metal release, not simply a highlight of the band’s career so far. Built on the archetypal sounds of anti-mainstream, alternative music from a few decades ago, Thou’s particular take on the matter is, amidst all this tumult, delicate as hell. Still, with this band there’s not a lot of delicacy, it’s mostly hell.
The repetitive, non-stop bludgeoning of tracks such as “Narcissist’s Prayer”, “Emotional Terrorist” and “I Return As Chained and Bound to You” constitute to the landmark, heavy as a wall of bricks, middle paced sludge doom mayhemic sound of the band. Marvelous melodies sometimes spring up above the wall of noise, like at the end of “Panic Stricken, I Flee” or “House of Ideas”, with the latter possibly being an absolute peak for the album. At the same time, Thou now dare to speed things up in “I Feel Nothing When You Cry” and the beginning of the following piece “Unbidden Guest”, which lifts “Umbilical” at higher levels of intensity that will potentially shock new or older fans alike. A personal favorite is “Lonely Vigil”, the shortest track of the record (and possibly one of the shortest they have ever written), a three minute demonstration of simplistic but masterful handling of slow sludge riffing, grisly and bedraggled in slime.
Similar slow paced cacophonies unravel in the album’s closing track “Siege Perilous” which is one of the most memorable for the same reason, confirming how I could seriously listen to these guitar lines for days on. Slightly brighter (but only musically, not lyrically) is the rather unique piece “The Promise”, which starts off with a more traditional song structure but self-destructs and breaks down wonderfully towards the end. The superb flow of “Umbilical” also helps a lot to emphasize the exquisite songwriting of the album and the ease in which Thou seemingly execute it, even though both the listener and the artist will have to endure shame and discomfort to fully appreciate what’s been created here. A great entry point before a deep dive to the band's back catalog, this new record is obsessive, filthy, seriously introspective and totally joyless. Or in other words, all you could ever ask from sludge / doom metal.
