ALBUM REVIEW: May Our Chambers Be Full – Thou & Emma Ruth Rundle

From two seemingly opposite ends of the metal spectrum comes one of the most intriguing collaborations in recent years. In May Our Chambers Be Full, the truly gnarly sludge metal of THOU meets EMMA RUTH RUNDLE’s post-rock-influenced dark folk – an album which revels in bleakness and intensity.

A warm soundscape begins the album as Killing Floor kicks us off. What’s immediately noticeable is that the mixing of the two sounds work in a variety of ways; at times EMMA RUTH RUNDLE’s hazy guitar lines and hypnotic vocal take the lead, at others, it’s the thickness of THOU’S sludge-via-black metal which is at the fore. Killing Floor does a good job of mixing the two, Bryan Funck’s ferocious growl often acting as backing vocals for Emma’s disaffected lead. 

There’s an unexpected additional vocal from KC Stafford on Monolith, the track which most shows off the punkier, muddy side of THOU and where EMMA RUTH RUNDLE‘s contribution is heard the least. Cold and warmth are balanced on standout track Magikal Cost, to excellent effect (and a notably epic turn from drummer Tyler Coburn). The song begins like the patter of rain on an attic roof, lit candles flickering and throwing up distorted shadows. It ends with rolls of thunder, close enough that it feels like you are in between the clouds themselves. 

May Our Chambers Be Full culminates in The Valley, undisputedly one of the best metal tracks of the year. Folks-y and primal, the track has a perfect pacing of build up and release over its nine minute runtime. It incorporates a celtic-sounding violin and meanders its way to one of the most satisfying conclusions of any album this year. This album standout was released as the second single, something which simultaneously gathered intrigue in the album and also saw their ace played a little early. It’s not a move which ruins the rest of the album, but it is a bit of a shame that this unequivocal highlight doesn’t come as a surprise.

Not necessarily show-stopping upon a first listen, May Our Chambers Be Full is an album which takes time to unpack. With subsequent plays, listeners will discover more layers of Emma’s gossamer post-rock interweave with THOU‘s crunchy doom, serving to make a THOU record with more delicacy, or an EMMA RUTH RUNDLE record with more sludge. Expert lyricism and a near-perfect sound are occasionally let down by the song structures, at times a little patchwork-y (the clear evolution of jamming sessions), at times a little predictable in the clean-to-unclean vocal patterns. 

The collaboration doesn’t out-stay its welcome, clocking in at just over half an hour, and is the perfect length to get a taste of the sort of music that these two artists can come up with. It’s difficult not to want more, especially when the sounds of the two work so well together, but it’s likely that the pattern of clean-to-growled-to-clean vocals would become a little tiring after a while. It’s tempting, also, to bemoan any semblance of these structural conventions, especially when taking into account the bizarreness of each artist individually. But the collaboration itself has bizarreness as its baseline – dark folk and blackened sludge meet to create a sort of heavy majesty. Two misfits of the metal scene intertwine, and the result is intriguing, unexpected and unique.

Rating: 8/10

May Our Chambers Be Full is set for release on October 30th via Sacred Bones. 

Follow THOU & EMMA RUTH RUNDLE on their website and Facebook.