Thou Announce New Album "Umbilical," Share Single
In the six years since Thou's debut on their current label Sacred Bones, Magus, the band has dropped a slew of collaborations, compilations, and other offerings, but the last two years have been radio silence. Today, the silence breaks in characteristically caustic fashion with a new album announcement and a new 'youth crew anthem' single with a lot more distortion than that phrase implies. The band's sound takes a new shape each time we hear from them, really, and this time that shape is unrestricted violence: the lead single "I Feel Nothing When You Cry" laces hardcore punk with sludgy bile.
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Regarding "I Feel Nothing When You Cry," the band comments:
A throwaway mantra scraped from the necrotic skin of syndicated television. A lugubrious nod to our favorite commode-crooning diva, one of her most diabolically terse lines. With the sweet, sultry whispers of a legendary New Orleans faerie. This might be as close as we’ll get to a positive, youth crew anthem. ‘This song has nothing original or of value. It’s a steady beat for dancing feet. You got what you wanted, now say the words…’
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The album announcement also comes with a full statement:
They've called us anarchists, criminals, foreign meddlers, lunatics, dispossessed, relativists, utilitarians, egoists, passion maximizers, ascetics, negators of everything. Clearly, the "Thou" experiment is never going to appeal to audiences who demand that art rigorously enforce a coherent and righteous worldview.
And yet, are we not ourselves constrained by our own rigid morality? In those quiet moments of deep contemplation, when the bargains and concessions are thoroughly examined, when we yield before the Judging Eye--what is the summation of our choices? If the unspoiled self beyond the immensity of time were given voice, what pronouncements would be made? What would such an internal audit yield? What undeniable character would be revealed?
This record is for the radicals, the crackpots, the exiles who have escaped the wasteland of capitulation. This record is for the militants and zealots refusing to surrender to comforts, to practicalities, to thirty pieces of silver. And this record is most especially for the weaklings and malingerers, burdened by capricious indulgence, hunched by the deep wounds of compromise, shuffling in limp approximation, desperately reaching back towards integrity and conviction.
- Thou
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Umbilical will be released across all digital platforms and available in stores May 31st via Sacred Bones. All vinyl editions come with a black 7” featuring the tracks "I Feel Nothing When You Cry” and "Unbidden Guest”, which are also available on CD and digital products.
Thou Live Dates:
Apr 13: New Orleans, LA - Palestine Benefit at Fred Hampton Free Store
May 04: Providence, RI - AS220
Jul 28: New Orleans, LA - The Broadside (w/ The Body + Dis Fig and Nail Club)
Sep 13-15: Richmond, VA - Persistent Vision Fest
Aug 14: The Zoo - Brisbane, AU *
Aug 15: Mary’s Underground - Sydney, AU *
Aug 16: The Baso - Canberra, AU *
Aug 17: Stay Gold - Melbourne, AU *
Aug 18: Crown & Anchor - Adelaide, AU *
Aug 23: Rolling Stone - Christchurch, NZ *
Aug 24: Meow - Wellington, NZ *
Aug 25: Galatos - Auckland, NZ *
* w/ Full of Hell
