Reviews: Thou, My Diligence, Nightrage, Reliqa (Reviews By Matt Bladen & GC)

Thou - Umbilical (Sacred Bones) [Matt Bladen]

Calling their new album Umbilical, Thou return with another record that is in keeping with their ethos as a band. They are primordial, a soup of various influences, keeping themselves alive with raw, ferocious music that is destructive and confrontational but also uplifting and cathartic. Far beyond their early days as a sludge act, they now build on the foundation of that swampy, distorted genre sign some hardcore abrasiveness and rebellious edge of grunge. 

Umbilical is their first full length of new music since 2018, they have done some splits and covers since then, but on Umbilical they look to reclaim the sound that made them such a potent force, with some obliterating riffage and terrifying vocals they experiment with their existence as agitators, radicals, a collective who are never shy to give their opinion and on Umbilical they try to delve into what would happen if we had no mortality. 

Narcissist's Prayer is ubiquitous of the Thou soundscape, a riff that crashes into you over and over again with a brute force, without a moment of stoppage Emotional Terrorist leans on that hardcore rage, with a slamming bass that drags it down into a low end breakdown at the end. If you're a fan of melodies or lighter touches you won't find that with Thou, they aim for the jugular with every distorted, monolithic riff and guttural roar, case in point being the tectonic Lonely Vigil. 

With tracks such as the violent death metal-like battering of I Feel Nothing When You Cry, the cascading I Return As Chained And Bound To You which towards the end becomes just a drum beat and single guitar as House Of Ideas is unbound, while the grooves coming from Panic Stricken I Flee dwell in those NOLA swamps. 

Thou stand alone with their caustic approach to their music and their existential lyricism, Umbilical is vital sixth album from these Baton Rouge heavies. 8/10

My Diligence - Death, Horses, Black (Listenable Records) [GC]

In round 2 of my total non-death metal random reviews, I can admit to having never heard of My Diligence, but they are stated as high-quality progressive stoner rock and claim to be one of Belgium's most prominent heavy psych bands, both equally bold claims! So, let’s see if they can back all this up!?

Starting off with the cheerily titled Death you get an airy guitar lead intro that then cascades into some nice staccato guitars and flows in and out of some chunky yet floaty sections and then some intensely heavy bits appear out of seemingly nowhere and its all a very good way to kick things off. Next up from the title list is Horses which starts off with a beautifully executed mix of spacious guitars that build toward the noisy, angry parts and once again manages to mix them together with a definite Isis influence that permeates the whole song. 

This leads us onto the final part of the title trio Black which perhaps unironically is the darkest song of the trio and has a little more menace than we have heard so far, it’s dark and brooding without being to involved, you can just close your eyes and listen because the flow of the track is a thing of staggering beauty. Auspicious is probably the most psych heavy song to start with but doesn’t stray far from dropping in the big stoner influenced riffs that have so far been the staple of all the songs. 

There are no big crunching sections on offer here which is always a shame but also doesn’t take too much away from the beauty My Diligence manage to craft in every song they put their name too, they just have this knack of roping you in and keeping you hooked all the way through, then suddenly, oh dear, I see the thing I hate the most Interlude (The Bridle And The Bit) and while this does sort of fit into the album sound as a whole, to make it clock in at nearly 4:30 is more than a bit annoying. 

This is then followed by the gargantuan 10:38 Allodiplogaster Sudhausi which instantly blows away the frustration of what it proceeded and sounds like when Mastodon where just blasting onto the scene full of vibrant energy and furious guitar riffs but then as quickly its back to the grandiose atmospheric sound but throughout there is never a part that makes you disconnect from what you are hearing every note is placed with precision and expertise and it’s a thing of absolute beauty to listen to and behold from start to finish. 

Lucid Alley doesn’t really pack as much of a punch as it is definitely more grunge influenced throughout and has a more spacious and echoing sound that has obviously been present in much of the material but here it just feels that little bit lacking in places, there is one thunderous section midway to break everything up but it just seems a bit randomly thrown in to break up the slower bits? Sacred Anchor then explodes out of the blocks with a post-punk influence now rearing its head in an unexpected but welcome way, it’s all interspersed with much of the familiar chugging stoner riffs and flowing atmospherics and is another journey of a song that rounds off this album wonderfully.

There were some big claims made by My Diligence and for the most part they were more than backed up by what they have produced on Death, Horses, Black which is a wonderful exercise in dreamy, intricate and heavy music that doesn’t just batter you around, it caresses you, draws you in then in the blink of an eye manages to devastate you with heaviness in a non-conventional way sure there are a couple of bits that might not have hit the mark but it has 100% won me over! 8/10

Nightrage – Remains Of A Dead World (Despotz Records) [Matt Bladen]

10 albums and 24 years, melodeath band Nightrage easily straddle both the Swedish and Greek extreme metal scenes. Led for that entire time by guitarist Marios Iliopoulos they have been making music that should be lauded with the greats of melodic death metal as anything on Remains Of A Dead World is just as good as In Flames, better even than the band they are now! But I digress.

This is album 10 an it sounds a bit more vital and brutal than previously, like they have something to prove, A Throne Of Melancholy for instance has a hearty chug to it, the lead screams backed by clean harmonies, Persevere Through Adversity also has a anthemic quality to it, both remaining me of Arch Enemy, the former displaying the killer guitar skills of Marios and Magnus Söderman but also the diversity of new singer Konstantinos Togas, who replaces Ronnie Nyman for the better. His vocal has more depth to it, allowing the songs to be heavier but also more melodic too.

As the guitarists are the main writers it’s pretty guitar focussed, but then melodic death metal is in general so you’re going to hear a lot of heavy riffs and technical soloing, but with the groove on Dark Light or the thrashing of Echoes Of Broken Words the backroom of Francisco Escalona (bass) and George "Dino" Stamoglou (drums) get a work out with slow heavy breakdowns and blasting death/thrash. Inspired and conceptually focussed on the damage we commit on the world, there is thematic link to how human beings should be better and take responsibility.

Deadliest Sin for instance is a brooding number that boils with rage, the dynamics and anger highlighted by Fotis Benardo’s killer production/mixing skills. He’s also a former member of the band, a current member of Septicflesh and an in demand producer so understands Nightrage, capturing their melodeath muscle perfectly, the clarity and razor sharp sound given by George Nerantzis’ mastering. As the scything Obey The Hand and the triumphal the title track close out this 10th album, any notion of Nightrage being underrated or overlooked can be dispelled.

With another record of laser focussed melodeath and the best singer they have had, they are in the top echelon of their class. 9/10

Reliqa - Secrets Of The Future (Nuclear Blast) [GC]

For this weeks releases I have decided to steer clear of the usual death metal/extreme metal release an plumped for a couple of random choices, first of which is Reliqa all way from Australia and they are ‘’taking progressive metalcore to new heights’’ from what I have read and this is all taking shape on their latest album Secrets Of The Future.

It all begins with latest single Dying Light that starts with a mix of spoken word and electronics that then does have the metalcore signature sound but also mixes in some more djent rhythms and Monique Pym certainly has a unique way of approaching some of the vocals that are a bit dodgy to these ears but when she opens up, she has a beautiful and melodic clean voice, Cave starts off nicely with some big walls of guitar and then mixes the dynamics a lot better than previously and the vocals are so much better here, they really propel the song forward excellently as opposed to holding back any momentum with strange arrangements. 

Killstar (The Cold World) once again shows a very decent technical application in the musical style and it feels like they have hit a real groove in the way the whole flow of the songs progress now as even with a more varied vocal approach again there is no real stopping the force of these songs, I think I would like to hear some harsher vocals included here and there though to really increase the driving force, this is evident on The Flower as the verses just feel a little flat and the song is all a bit throwaway and this leads us into title track Secrets Of The Future and unfortunately this is also not for me it’s slow and moody and sort of plods along without really doing a lot and it ultimately slightly boring because of it. 

Midway through now and we get Terminal, and it has a very power metal feel to the beginning that then drops back into the more familiar atmospheric territory and while there might be something there and the vocals once again carry the song, I just can’t get into this song, not sure if Keep Yourself Awake is a demand or a challenge because once again there is another change up of styles and you get a gothy metal disco feel mixed into the heavily nu-metal influenced song and honestly? I hate it and am glad when it’s over, Crossfire takes well over a minute to really kick in and when it does its it then just drops back into yet another moody atmospheric mid-pacer that doesn’t really do much to inspire much faith in the rest of the album. 

Physical does fair slightly better but the bass is probably the most twangy and annoying thing you have heard since the height of Korn and it almost drowns out everything else but luckily they pull it back midway through and it all improves from there, Two Steps Apart frustrates again as it starts promising with some big riffing and then falls directly back into the trap of sort of trying to hard to create a big atmospheric feeling and I REALLY think these guys need 2 guitarist so they can mix they intricate noodley bits they try in with some proper thundering riffs and that would really pick everything up dramatically!! A Spark is just the most frustrating song of all as it just bores me to tears and this far into an album, I don’t need things like this happening, Upside Down does nothing to improve my mood any and to be honest I’m just glad it's over now.

I’m annoyed at Secrets Of The Future as it started off promisingly but just got progressively more middle of the road as it went on, and on, and on, 12 tracks was at least 2 more than needed as towards the end everything just sounded the same and blurred into one long and uninspiring listen and if your bored of a 12 song album by about song 7 then, really? What is the point? A little bit more focus and force and we could have had a much higher score! Shame. 4/10