With a true collaboration happening between these two bands, I was not expecting any sort of subtlety or restraint, and my initial thoughts were proven to be true. I was, however, planning to hear a lurching mass of distortion and excruciating vocals, and that is exactly what is here. Neither artist clearly fits into the standard metal templates, and with them working together here, that is all the more apparent.
Probably the most applicable subgenre that I could use to describe this album would be "doom," but even that is too simplistic of a label.No stoner rock clichés, no cheeseball Satanic imagery, and just a Sabbath influence, rather than emulation define You, Whom I've Always Hated.The lengthy album opener "Her Strongholds Unvanquishable" may begin with oddly processed percussion and squalling guitar, but soon becomes a dense, swampy mess that is heavy on the middle and low end.Dirge-like, with a noisy weird passage in the middle, it has a slowly lumbering pace, but majestically so, with a sense of epic drama.
The short "He Returns to the Place of His Inequity" is the other experimental moment on the record.Melodic guitar, heavily processed random noises and scrapes, and a hushed spoken word vocal track make this song the most out there of the ones on the album.The remaining songs are a bit less experimental, but still enjoyable as hell.The dull thudding drums and overdriven bass of "Beyond the Realms of Dream, That Fleeting Shade Under the Corpus of Vanity" may begin with a caveman stomp, but soon has the two bands constructing a molten lava groove with a wonderfully noisy chorus.
The title of "The Devils of Trust Steal the Souls of the Free" may be one of Thou's nods to 1990s music (being a line from Nine Inch Nails' "Happiness in Slavery") but the sound is very different:a simple, but compelling rhythmic murky pound make up the bulk of the song.More overtly, however, is the two bands' cover of NIN's "Terrible Lie", bearing little resemblance to the original.Like The Body's take on Body Count’s "Cop Killer", the vocals are there and lyrically faithful, but other than a brief shitty electronic sample at the beginning, the sound is anything but Trent Reznor's goth kid mope.Instead it trudges around, filling the originally sparse verse moments of the original with a wall of distorted guitar.
The digital and CD versions of the album also include the previous Thou/The Body collaboration, Released from Love, that was previously only available on vinyl.The sound is unsurprisingly consistent with the newer work:slow sludgy riffs and eventually pounding metal most specifically define "The Wheel Weaves as the Wheel Wills", and "Manifest Alchemy" is all hysterical screaming with the rest sounding like Sabbath played too slow.Another cover, this time of Vic Chesnutt's "Coward" is the standout as far as uniqueness goes.An oddly light guitar melody leads off, pared with thumping drums and distorted bass, and eventually an almost 1980s metal guitar solo that somehow works brilliantly.All the while the uncomfortable vocals are processed to be distant, sounding like someone potentially dangerous screaming outside of the window.
The previous material of Released from Love fits in perfectly with You, Whom I’ve Always Hated very well, sounding like a long album rather than two separate releases combined.It is an ugly, abrasive record that borrows heavily from the world of heavy metal, but with the two bands putting things together just enough off kilter to be appealing to people such as myself, who have only sporadic interest in the genres they may draw from.
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