Heathen

Recorded in January 2013 in Algiers, Louisiana by James Whitten. Mastered by Adam Tucker.

Thou have lightened up a bit on their excellent fourth album, their first since 2010’s Summit, without losing their ability to shock and awe. Mixing in clean vocals, acoustic passages, and strings and horns, the 60-plus minute Heathen is the Louisiana sludge/doom band’s most punishing work to date, and yet it's also their most beautiful.

To call an album like Heathen epic is to damn it with faint praise.