Mizmor & Thou, 'Drover of Man'

It's just like Thou, masters of metallic doom and gloom, to drop an album out of nowhere — or several, really. (Remember the summer of 2018? There were two split releases, three album-length EPs and the NPR year-end list-making Magus.) Seems like we're due for another barrage of material, so let it begin with Myopia, a collaboration written and recorded with the one-man, blackened doom band Mizmor. Thou and Mizmor will perform the album at the Roadburn Festival tonight, but the whole thing is officially here.

On an album that plays to their strengths, "Drover of Man" summons a beautiful ache. The 10-minute track features slow-moving, bone-shattering riffs delivered with doomed dejection as Thou's Bryan Funck and Mizmor's A.L.N. trade sneering shrieks and low howls. The caustic grace is not unlike Neurosis at its most dolor, but works different muscles: Thou leans into its most triumphant tendencies with arena-ripe guitar squeals over heavy shoegaze, eventually working itself up into a martial, Celtic Frost-y section of god-stomping proportions.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.