Thou, Heathen

I don’t know why but I’ve had a hard time trying to think about Thou, so I’m just gonna try to tell it as straight as possible. Thou, Doom Metal/Sludge band from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, is pretty nifty. They’re not as distorted as Doom can be, but they’re not any less heavy. They’re not as effects driven in their gentler parts, but that doesn’t make them sound any less graceful. Their latest album, Heathen, came out in late March and is an addition in their long line of albums, EP’s and splits. Staunchly do-it-themselves, ridiculously raw in the vocals, and harsh critics of life as we know it through their lyrics, Thou paints a picture that is through and through Doom Metal but just a little different sounding.

Heathen is their longest album at over an hour long. Some people might consider the songs a little too lengthy for their own good and the “payoff” not terribly exciting, but I find something like the sorrowful and tapering end of “At the Foot of Mt. Drisskill” damn near perfect, and the two final songs on the album “Immortality Dictates” and “Ode to Physical Pain” both leave you in contemplation. If this albums lyrics were physical beings, they’d leave you bloody and beaten in the middle of a field with their notions of insignificance and worthlessness of higher beings of any kind. You are at Thou’s mercy, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be fun. “Into The Marshlands” is a groovy as hell song with a pounding ending that leaves me wanting more. The calm interludes every one or two songs is a stark contrast to the rest of the song, but it isn’t flow breaking and they’re quite beautiful snippets of calm among a storm.

Thou recently got a Bandcamp and hosts all their main albums there plus a few albums of remastered material from various EP’s and splits which you can click the album cover above to get to. As of this writing they seem to have run out of free download slots so whatever is there is available for $7 each. However, they put out all of their material for free on their own website so you can pick up pretty much everything they’ve released, and it is an impressive amount. I admit I’m not that intimate with Thou’s releases, Heathen being the one that has most of my attention right now, but on it’s own I think it’s an enjoyable and slightly different Doom Metal experience.