by Jordan Michael (@jordwhyjames)
For many of us, depression is a continuous entity throughout life. There are upteen ways to refute depression, and one is listening to doom metal with gargantuan riffs and pounding rhythms. Maybe it is strange to say that dark music makes me happy, but probably not; doom metal is a rip-roaring good time. Prime example: anything Thou has produced and released over the last fifteen years.
Enjoying Thou is very easy—it sounds right, it feels right. Thou is an irrefutable blend of metal, noise, punk, blackness, rock, doom, and experimentation. The music can be violent, it can be meditative. It’s caustic, but it is somber. Myopia, the collaboration made in secret with Mizmor for Gilead Media, is all of the above. Myopia is exhausting, a worthy marathon. You might want to take a half-time break and rehydrate, or sprawl out and take all 73 minutes. If only actual doomsday was as entertaining as Myopia.
Mizmor, active in wholly-doomed-black metal since 2012, fits hand-in-glove with Thou. A fierce wind, a beautiful ache. The guitars sing with the vocals of Bryan Funck and Mizmor, high for high, low for low. Bludgeoning vocals are a necessary instrument for dark-black doom metal, and Funck and Mizmor go through some agonizing stretches (“Drover of Man,” “Manifold Lens”). It’s less from the throat and more from the gut, as if all of their pain is fleeting from their insides. Thou continues to create a particular ominous atmosphere, which is amazingly irritating, and Mizmor slides in comfortably.
A quote from The Fly (1986) is posted on the Bandcamp page for Myopia: “I’m an insect who dreamt he was a man and loved it. But now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.” Jeff Goldblum’s character, Seth Brundle, says the statement while contemplating insect politics. Brundle says that insects are brutal, they have no compromise or compassion. Myopia is destructive, but wisdom begets compassion. Conviction kills, and the guitars on Myopia are offensive. Not sure what instruments Mizmor is playing here—Gilead Media or the bands had no press materials readily available—but this is the signature Thou thrash and squeal, courtesy of Andy Gibbs and Matthew Thudium, which is now classic metal. It is a beautiful ugliness that Thou mastered long ago, an original black punk sound. Myopia is absolutely insane.
As if buried under a tree root, Mizmor and Thou sprout with savage growls and blasting rhythms. Myopia does not relent, except for a few melancholic passages. The vocals are a test of how much pain the listener can take; obviously, Funck and Mizmor have endured enough agony to spew fire. “Those of a broader intelligence know that there is no distinction between the real and the unreal—affronts both actual and perceived and imagined. Pain and pain and pain again sealed within a book, a thought, a fleeting memory,” reads lyrics from “Indignance.” The definition of “myopia” is nearsightedness or lack of imagination, foresight or intellectual insight. According to Myopia’s lyrical content, we may be doomed runts of sanity that conquer ourselves by faith. “When the cell doors all warp, deliverance scorned…question your keepers. Question your protectors. Question your comforters. Question your consolers.” We may have been judged and found to be lacking. We can be killed, enslaved, helped, or saved. We infest ourselves with our own ideas.
Hopefully, Thou and Mizmor have future recording plans. Myopia was released on the same day (April 22) that the bands played together at Roadburn Festival in the Netherlands. Bless all those who bear witness.