Album Review : Thou - Umbilical (2024)
In 2023, I gave my album of the year to Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean's Obsession Destruction and claimed to whoever wanted to hear it: "They’re inspired by Thou, but they've become better now." It seems like a certain band of grizzled New Orleans motherfuckers have taken it personally. Their frontman Bryan Funck (who I amicably call Bryan Fuck because he fucks so hard) said "hold my beer" and leaned into the most vile and overwhelming record I've heard in a long time.
Umbilical is here and it resets the standard.
This is a ten songs, forty-eight minutes long recording of some of the nastiest and most bombastic sludge metal I've ever heard. This is as loud, violent and bone-rattling as music can get. The opener Narcissist's Prayer is a six minutes lumbering juggernaut lead by an ungodly Bryan Funck performance that reminds us of an underrated variable of great vocals: cadence. His acid burnt voice chants the lyrics like a satanic priest would lead a black mass to obssessive riffs and shitloads of feedback. It's unnerving in the best possible way.
As commanding as Narcissist's Prayer feels, it's just an appetizer for what's about to hit you. Emotional Terrorist is …well, an emotional experience in itself. Narrated from the perspective of a deranged manipulator, it tells the story of a relationship about to end in tragedy. The bass and drums on this song are so pulverizing and the guitar riffs are so ridiculously catchy. Sludge metal is a different beast when it comes to composing music and Thou understand what makes it memorable. You need to feel it in your body.
The unlikely groove of Lonely Vigil doubled with Bryan Funck's sheer dedication to his lengthy washed out shrills makes it another memorable listening experience. There's an inherent playfulness to Thou’s music akin to a predator toying his food that I really love. It's the kind of music you'd play at a dance party in hell. I've been talking about Umbilical in glowing terms so far, but the opening songs are pale in comparison to what I esteem to be one of Thou's best songs House of Ideas. You can't possibly prepare for it.
I'm a complete sucker for lengthy, menacing guitar riffs and House of Ideas has like, four complete minutes of exactly that? It is such an atmospheric masterpiece. Shout out to Tyler Coburn's drumming on the second part of House of Ideas, which creates a nasty sense of anticipation. Unlike a lot metal drummers, he's all about precision and emotional impact rather than physical performance. The last two minutes of this song have some of the most haunting instrumentals I've heard in many years.
It made me stomp and mean mug all over my living room.
I Feel Nothing When You Cry was the first single from Umbilical, so I expect most people to be already familiar with it. The production is quite maximalist and overwhelming, but it had almost a rock feeling to it. It's an uptempo song with lyrics where an unhinged man is trying to convince himself that he is emotionally untouchable. The contrast between the lyrics and the chaotic nature of the instrumentation creates this powerful, but uneasy feeling I’m always looking for in metal.
Thou aren’t exactly shy of their Nirvana influences since they recorded a freakin' cover album in Blessings of the Highest Order, but Unbidden Guest is the second song in a row on Umbilical where these influences are displayed in original material. It's a fun and catchy song that makes the most of how the production muddily blends the guitars into a pervasive wall of sound. It's a chaotic mosh pit starter that also serves as a welcomed breather between longer and more punishing songs, speaking of which….
I Return as Chained and Bound to You is an almost seven minutes long cut where Thou exploit their uncanny ability to be doomy and bombastic at the same time. This band has such a mastery of tempo in their songs. Everything on Umbilical feels so memorable because it's so unlike anything else. The visceral performance by Bryan Funck is memorable on this one also. His voice pierces through the ongoing chaos and sinks its hooks into you. It's such an odd and unrelenting song, pleasure grows as it perdures.
The Promise is another dare-I-say Nirvanacore song with a catchy hook and a more conventional four minutes structure. It's hard not to like, but it suffers a little bit from being placed after one of their most bone-rattling moments as a band. Panic Stricken, I Flee explores the band's punk influences and Bryan Funck’s obsession with the, let’s say less chivalrous aspects of human nature. The closer Siege Perilous is the slowest and doomiest song on the record, which feels fitting in these circumstances.
Funck ends the record on "Arise from our deathbed. Return to life and walk away. And I’m not coming back," which sounds fucking righteous even if I don't know what the fuck it means. It's part of the fun. You can carve personal meaning to Thou's music.
*
Umbilical is an Earth scorcher of a record. Quite honestly, I live to find music that has the power to elevate me above my own bullshit, but also a reflexive quality that can only be unpacked upon several listening. Thou is both simple and sophisticated. With Umbilical, they have achieved a nearly flawless execution a style that usually no one gets 100% right. Your move, Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean. Sludge metal is in a great place when bands inspire one another to overachieve like this.
