November is Doom - Thou : "Umbilical"

Thou is one of those bands that gets so much hype and does not deliver much outside of what is expected that I lost interest in. But seeing how the year is winding down and lists are going to begin surfacing, these guys will be on some of them for no reason other than this is a band the hipsters approve of meaning there does not have to be much substance, though I do prefer these guys over the Body. They are one of the few metallic bands on Sacred Bones which should tell you something. The first song finds the vocals just occupying the needed space, as the guitars lumber over riffs. It does not take long for this song to bore me. They have great fuzzed-out guitar tones, but tone alone is something that can be easily dialed in by a producer.

 Once again on 'Emotional Terrorist" the vocals do not do anything with purpose til the chorus. The accents are more hardcore which I appreciate. "Lonely Vigil" slows down to a scathing stomp. Despite moving at a deliberate crunch there is a great deal of chaos about this song. This chaos is pushed even further for "House of Ideas', there are moments where a chug allows the song to breathe, but it is largely chaos. Two and a half minutes into it and there is no direction, then two minutes later a melodic guitar line helps the song, though the rule here is "cool riffs alone does not a good song make". I feel a great deal of what goes down on this album was done better on Full of Hell's album. " I Feel Nothing When Cry" bangs around and creates a sound to scream over but is not much of a song. This has roughly more in common with hardcore than it does sludge.

"Unbidden Guest" rages with the same feral chaos in its veins. The vocals have a little more purpose though. "I Return as Chained and Bound to You" has the more deliberate stomp you expect from these guys. "The Promis" is one of the first tracks that feels like a song. The album sounds like they just stuck a mic in the practice space. We are heading into doomier territory on "Panic Striken I Flee" with some rock swagger in the verse riff. I will give this album a 7, as there are a few songs that work and some of the punchy hardcore energy works but do not  show up hoping for a sludge fest as things are more chaotic than

pst549