It has been six long years since Louisiana extreme outliers THOU first debuted with their introductory LP, Magus. While the band would resurface triumphantly, defying expectations with their hugely ambitious split with Emma Ruth Rundle in 2020's May Our Chambers Be Full, it has been a long four years since.
Emphatically marking their return, the band that has made a career of sourcing the most effective elements of metallic extremity have debuted a pummeling new single in "I Feel Nothing When You Cry". The track officially begins the band's sophomore full length campaign with the May 31st arrival of Umbilical via Sacred Bones.
Speaking bluntly of the track's intended effect, the band offered the following of the single calling it, “A throwaway mantra scraped from the necrotic skin of syndicated television. A lugubrious nod to our favorite commode-crooning diva, one of her most diabolically terse lines. With the sweet, sultry whispers of a legendary New Orleans faerie. This might be as close as we’ll get to a positive, youth crew anthem. ‘This song has nothing original or of value. It’s a steady beat for dancing feet. You got what you wanted, now say the words…’”
The band's homage to the confrontational backbone of 90's DIY hardcore punk, Umbilical falls in line with the likes Disrupt, Nausea and Assück - tapping into musical extremity as a means of vehement dispute and poignant protest.
Offering a direct summation of the record and the band's continued disposition, Thou collectively shared of the record in a statement.
"They've called us anarchists, criminals, foreign meddlers, lunatics, dispossessed, relativists, utilitarians, egoists, passion maximizers, ascetics, negators of everything. Clearly, the "Thou" experiment is never going to appeal to audiences who demand that art rigorously enforce a coherent and righteous worldview.
And yet, are we not ourselves constrained by our own rigid morality? In those quiet moments of deep contemplation, when the bargains and concessions are thoroughly examined, when we yield before the Judging Eye--what is the summation of our choices? If the unspoiled self beyond the immensity of time were given voice, what pronouncements would be made? What would such an internal audit yield? What undeniable character would be revealed?
This record is for the radicals, the crackpots, the exiles who have escaped the wasteland of capitulation. This record is for the militants and zealots refusing to surrender to comforts, to practicalities, to thirty pieces of silver. And this record is most especially for the weaklings and malingerers, burdened by capricious indulgence, hunched by the deep wounds of compromise, shuffling in limp approximation, desperately reaching back towards integrity and conviction."
Umbilical arrives May 31st via Sacred Bones. Check the artwork and tracklist below. Order the album - HERE
See the current list of live dates for THOU below.
