In 2022, Thou contributed to the NORCO video game soundtrack and then teamed up with Mizmor for a surprise collaborative album called Myopia. Today, the Louisiana sludge crew is announcing their sixth LP Umbilical, the follow-up to 2018’s Magus. The ruthless lead single “I Feel Nothing When You Cry” is out now.

“They’ve called us anarchists, criminals, foreign meddlers, lunatics, dispossessed, relativists, utilitarians, egoists, passion maximizers, ascetics, negators of everything,” Thou said in a statement. The band continued:

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.

Hear “I Feel Nothing When You Cry” below.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Narcissist’s Prayer”
02 “Emotional Terrorist”
03 “Lonely Vigil”
04 “House Of Ideas”
05 “I Feel Nothing When You Cry”
06 “Unbidden Guest”
07 “I Return As Chained And Bound To You”
08 “The Promise”
09 “Panic Stricken, I Flee”
10 “Siege Perilous”

TOUR DATES:
04/13 – New Orleans, LA @ Palestine Benefit at Fred Hampton Free Store
05/04 – Providence, RI @ AS220
07/28 – New Orleans, LA @ The Broadside (w/ The Body + Dis Fig and Nail Club)
08/14 – The Zoo @ Brisbane, AU *
08/15 – Sydney, AU @ Mary’s Underground *
08/16 – Canberra, AU @ The Baso *
08/17 – Melbourne, AU @ Stay Gold *
08/18 – Adelaide, AU @ Crown & Anchor *
08/23 – Christchurch, NZ@ Rolling Stone *
08/24 – Wellington, NZ @ Meow *
08/25 – Auckland, NZ @ Galatos *
09/13-15 – Richmond, VA @ Persistent Vision Fest

* w/ Full of Hell

Umbilical is out 5/31 on Sacred Bones.