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Thou: Umbilical review – one of the finest metal albums of the past decade
Huge riffs, guttural vocals and fearsome intent create a formidable wall of sound in the US band’s maximalist, in-your-face sixth album
Indeed, the narcotic heat of Louisiana – the band are from Baton Rouge – seeps through every sickly pore, wedding itself to the circling riffs, loose rhythmic under-swing and throat shredding screams alike: a brutal urban blues. The artwork for UmbilicalBut where 2014’s breakthrough Heathen was of a more epic, doomy bent, Umbilical – the band’s sixth full length album – speaks more closely to Thou’s links to the underground punk and hardcore scenes with shorter, (even) more aggressive songs and in-your-face delivery. Bryan Funck’s serrated, guttural vocals prove surprisingly limber throughout, while guitarists Andy Gibbs, Matthew Thudium and KC Stafford trade riffs by turns crunchy and rolling, a pleasingly neanderthal groove ever present.
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