Post-rock singer-songwriter Emma Ruth Rundle and high-volume, sludge metal-heads Thou are not obvious musical collaborators, but with May Our Chambers Be Full, they really have come up trumps with an album that may not encourage many to take to the dancefloor but will certainly grab the attention of their disparate groups of fans and a fair few others too. Dramatic but melodic tunes that are relatively mellow and laidback one minute and then screaming and visceral the next, are wrapped in an atmospheric and often disorientating production, with Emma Ruth singing in an almost folkie style over the backing vocals and demonic howling and screaming of Bryan Funck. It’s all pretty heavy stuff, that often veers towards the grungy and heavy psyche end of things, throwing up powerful sonic typhoons that are primal and raw in their intensity, yet occasionally float into the more ethereal before letting rip once again.
Opening track, “Killing Floor” is woozy and off-kilter with shades of Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s heavy neo-prog sounds, while “Monolith” is a riff-heavy grunge-like monster that its title implies. Elsewhere, “Out of Existence” and “Ancestral Recall” freely skip genres back and forth between blood curdling and skull crushing metal and more melodic sounds, building up a musical storm that ebbs and flows before finally fading away.
Final tune, “The Valley” is almost cinematic in its widescreen approach and could quite easily have appeared on Emma Ruth Rundle’s most recent solo album, On Dark Horses. Folk violin melodies intertwine with post-rock meanderings to create an atmospheric epic that lays down serious witchy vibes that build into an immense cacophony, before ebbing away again. In fact, with Halloween on the near horizon, May Our Chambers Be Full could easily provide a fine soundtrack to scare away any malevolent spirits this year.
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