Song Highlight: Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean - The Chalice

The prolific Louisiana sludge metal band Thou have a song on their first full length album called "Fucking chained to the bottom of the ocean". The song does an excellent job of giving a sound to the bleak oppressiveness of confinement. There is something extremely evocative in the song title alone, conjuring images of someone eternally shackled in the icy darkness below the ocean’s lapping waves. The Massachusetts sludge metal band Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean must have thought as much, as they most certainly took their name from the song. If we needed any more evidence that Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean are fans of Thou, they recorded a cover of “The Chain” which Thou and The Body performed at the KEXP studio in 2015, which is a cover of Fleetwood Mac's classic "The Chain".

Song Highlight: Thou - Eulogy

It is hard to think of a band that works harder than Thou, the prolific doom/sludge metal band from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Since their inception in 2005, they have released a staggering number of releases, including five studio albums and an absurd number of splits and EPs. These have been released across a wide array of record labels, nearly all of them smaller independent labels, helping to show the band’s insistence on a “do it yourself” aesthetic, never wanting to be tied down by the constraints of an overbearing record label. They have used all of these releases to broadly experiment with the genre of sludge metal, thoroughly straying outside the bounds set by pioneering bands of the genre like Eyehategod. I can think of no band that is able to combine the wretchedly ugly with profound beauty as adeptly as Thou. For a genre largely defined by crushing and slowly churning guitar riffs, something like a shimmering post rock guitar line might seem wildly out of place, but Thou do it with a naturalness that makes you question why you ever would have questioned its inclusion.

Song Highlight: The Body - Tied Up and Locked In

When considering the genre of heavy music, I can think of no band that is more despondent than The Body. And perhaps most surprisingly, they are able to accomplish this without appearing overly heavy-handed or gimmicky. The piercing banshee wail of Chip King, set over the distorted hum of his guitar, and Lee Buford’s monolithic drumming is truly a unique and oppressive force. As a band, the Body have been pushing against the confines of the metal genre since their inception. They have been strong proponents of incorporating noise into their music, along with utilizing pop song structures and elements of electronic music. Their album I Have Fought Against It, But I Can’t Any Longer was built largely from spliced together samples of their older recordings, and many of their albums feature choral arrangements from the Assembly of Light Choir, demonstrating some of the diversity of their approach to making music. Furthermore, they are incredibly prolific and are constantly working with other musicians, releasing collaborative albums with bands like Full of Hell, Thou, Krieg, and Uniform. 

Song Highlight: Thou, Emma Ruth Rundle - Out of Existence

The Baton Rouge sludge metal stalwarts Thou have been hard to pin down stylistically since their inception in 2005. While you could just slot them into the Doom / Sludge metal genre and call it a day, that would be underscoring their creativity. It is not uncommon for their tracks to intersperse crushingly powerful riffs with gorgeous post-rock ambient passages. If asked to think of a band that is able to be beautiful and ugly within the confines of a single song, Thou is the first that comes to my mind. Through a dizzying collection of releases, they have explored many different sounds. In 2018 alone, they released an ambient noise/drone EP, a grunge rock EP, a decidedly not metal alternative rock/acoustic EP, a full length record, and a split with the black metal/doom metal band Ragana.