Them Are They have just surreptitiously dropped their new album this weekend and it’s a wonderful pay off to a hell of a long wait, given the band have been around for a couple of years now and had only numbers for their songs instead of actual song names for the longest time. It could be worse, I know of a metal band that name developing songs after foodstuffs they abhor.

  • Them Are They
  • Them Are They – Onism
  • Them Are They

There are eight tracks on the album that clocks in around the 40-minute mark. It flows steadily in a similar vein from start to finish, as you’d expect from a two-piece math-rock unit. The opening tracks grab your attention and have similarities to La Dispute and Sunny Day Real Estate, with early highlight ‘Restoring Force‘ establishing their definitive guitar sound and pumping overloaded cymbals hidden amongst the raging drums.

The album progresses forward and develops more aggressively into pg.lost and Russian Circles territory with ‘To Fall To Tatarus‘ with its pounding drum fills and early Deftones/Queens of the Stone Age riffs.

It quickly sinks in that this isn’t my first listen of the album. The intentionally awkward early rhythm of ‘Her Belongings Became Echoes‘ is what triggered the realisation that if you’ve seen them live then this album is a faithful representation of what you get, minus the incongruous comedy banter that the pair of them accidentally deliver.

Tim’s vocals (or more accurately a contact mic on his throat, pedals, and some jiggery-pokery) make for additional layering on two songs ‘Broken Isn’t the Same as Unfixable‘ and ‘I Hope They Are Being Kind To You‘ which adds welcome variation and space.

Them Are They have diversified their social media output recently so you can catch them at the following locations, as well as live on 31st January 2020 at Dubrek Studios with Too Piste opening and Tor headlining.