Turning the Platonic philosophies into a ten track epic is no easy task. Thumos, hailing from the US, has done just that. The 10 books of Plato are incredibly deep concepts and stories that have set the foundation of modern day thinking. If you’re somewhat familiar with Plato and his works, these won’t come as much of a surprise to you, but being able to translate them from words to a musical concept is an artistic feat of its own, that even the ancients themselves would see it as such.
Being an instrumental metal album, you have a lot of room to work with. The overall vibe of the album is rather heavy and slow. Very melodic and incredibly well written. The way the instruments are able to jam together and really have a very organic and harmonious nature to it all, it really is very pleasant to listen to. Especially the more atmospheric and beautiful tracks, the fifth track The Forms is a great example of that. There’s this overall lofi quality to the production. At first, I assumed it was because of some low quality upload of it on YouTube but in fact after getting better uncompressed files and giving the album a listen, much to my surprise that raw lofi quality was still there. I’m not sure if it was a stylistic choice but it doesn’t really change it for me. Just a personal preference but with an album like this I think a cleaner approach would be more fitting, but even so, this still holds to be an incredibly powerful album to listen to. No instrument is lacking and they all have memorable parts, with the guitars and the creative and at times very wicked sounding riffs take center stage and get stuck in your head for quite some time. The fourth track The Psyche does just that, with its hammer-on guitar parts that get very catchy. I’ve found myself humming when going about doing day to day activities. It’s just that good.
Each track takes the concept behind each book and is able to translate it so well into a musical format. The emotion and the whole vibe of it all is captured flawlessly. I feel like the seventh track The Cave is a great example of what I mean. If you’re unfamiliar, Plato’s allegory of the cave is an incredibly powerful concept. Describing the effect of education, and the lack thereof, upon man’s nature. This is told through a story of these prisoners who are chained up, from childhood, but not from birth. They’re chained up in a way so that they can’t move and they’re forced to stare at a cave wall, where the only light they have is a fire behind them that projects the shadows of their captors and whoever else that passes by upon the wall. The song at hand, is able to take this imagery and translate it in this hard hitting and rather harsh song. Because once those prisoners break free and are able to see that the world around them is much greater than the cave they were in, the music itself has this almost angry yet triumphant sound, which is a call back from earlier in the track. You can interpret the imagery as you wish, but this track in particular is what clicked this whole album for me and made me realize just how well put together it really is.
This is such a fantastic release, and being the first full length from this band, it is making me very excited for whatever else they have in store in the future. This album I think will be something people will be looking back to in the future, and has an almost timeless sound to it all thanks to the song writing. Perhaps, much like the 10 books themselves, these 10 tracks will be remembered for some time.