Thou

Primitive Man, “Loathe”

Primitive Man is very aptly named, a knuckle-dragging sludge/doom act from Denver, putting out punishing, bleak records that are unsubtle in the extreme. This little ditty comes from Home Is Where The Hatred Is, an EP from 2015 that is just basically sunless and crushing like this.

Thou, “Feral Faun”

Thou is actually one of the bands I think of as being closest to Primitive Man, so nice pull, shuffle. I suppose there’s more nuance to Thou than Primitive Man at times, as you can hear in the intro to this song. But, overall, it’s the same kind of bleak approach to things. There’s more melody here, I suppose, if you squint hard enough.

Today!

Thou, “Find the Cost of Freedom”

Metal has links to folk in a bunch of ways, ranging from the atavistic impulses of black metal, the explicit crossover of various folk metal acts, the lack of fear of being totally uncommercial, or even just the willingness of metal bands to strip things down to provide contrast, like Thou is doing here.

Louis Armstrong, “Ain’t Misbehaving”

We, of course, are well aware that I don’t know shit. About anything, really. But I have to do something to entertain myself while listening, so I read a little potted bio of Armstrong. Why not? And this bio declared that Armstrong is the most influential figure in jazz. Huh.

Today!

Thou, “There There”

This is how Thou’s album Algiers ends, which is a collection of assorted EPs and singles. There’s something so elemental about the way that Thou sounds. Something about the entire sound of the band is downright contemptuous. Lots of bands manage to sound ugly, or grim, or noisy, or just generally awful. Thou somehow manages to sound spiteful, which is a neat trick. Well, I dunno about neat. Anyway, this collection isn’t a bad place to start with Thou. Or Heathen, which is a great metal album name.