genres: electronic + gothic rock
What if Nine Inch Nails and Foster The People had a musical baby? It would probably sound a lot like Thief. I’ll break that down in a bit more detail in a minute, but hopefully that’s enough to present a glimpse of both how weird and polished this project is. This is a dark electronic project with more than a few gothic tendencies of choirs and organs laid over pulsing samples, with occasional brushes with harsher textures. Although this album represents a more personal departure from earlier releases, the influence of the medieval sacred music that shaped earlier releases by the act still shines through.
So, about that NIN and Foster The People baby. The overall musical style is quite reminiscent of the bubbling dark electro that characterizes most of NIN’s catalog, while the vocals recall Mark Foster’s with remarkable precision (with many of the lighter songs like “Fire in the Land of Endless Rain” being a perfect fit on FTP’s Sacred Hearts Club). Chino Moreno’s side project ††† is an excellent reference point as well, with songs like “Crestfaller” or “Scorpion Mother” fitting closely with the Deftones’ side project’s sound. The polish of Thief is most apparent on the more experimental tracks, like “Night Spikes”, which pairs clipped beats and haunting acoustic elements with rap elements.
It’s hard to talk about Thief, without talking about Botanist, the band through whom I first discovered this project. Botanist is truly one of the weirdest bands active right now (a mostly acoustic black metal band about plants), and Thief is the side project of their dulcimer player. A similarly radical ethos permeates Thief. Both take a mechanical subgenre (black metal | industrial) and merge it with organic textures while retaining an underlying darkness. Both reject a western humanistic viewpoint common to those genres with something else (eco-centric | D. Neal of Thief is a resident/student of a Buddhist monastery). This is most direct on “Teenage Satanist”, which decries athiestic Satanism as nothing more than edgy rebellion against the status quo without an underlying purpose. This isn’t to say that there’s much brightness here. The 16 Deaths of My Master is an honest struggle with addiction and “spiritual horror” that rarely arrives at ultimate answers, but is more than willing to announce what hasn’t been satisfactory.
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