American metallers, THUMOS, are back. With what has been a busy and industrious year for the band, they are dropping their 7^th... yes you read that right 7^th! Release since 2020 in the form of "Nothing Further Beyond". The artwork for the EP is very tapestry like, something a little different but it really stands out.

Opening the EP is "The Ecumene" and I was definitely taken by surprise. It could have been taken straight from a movie score and it struck me as very medieval. Keeping in with the artwork it would seem. I'm intrigued to see where this will go. "The Pillars" comes in with some dense and heavy riffs, much more what I was expecting. The near 6 minute track is a mesmerising instrumental affair, with the music really just flowing seamlessly. It is smooth all other, but there are some short jagged edges in the tracking which accent the reminder. It's something different that's for sure.

"The Noble Lie" continues along this eerie and ethereal style. The music again is solid, good switch ups in tempo and intensity as the track grows and builds. The downside to me is still this lack of vocals, after a while I started to find the instrumentals slightly self indulgent and I was almost becoming disinterested with it there were little peaks that grabbed my attention again but I was definitely starting to flag towards the end. There's not much to say for "The Dilemma", as a shorter track at just shy of two minutes, it is another instrumental. In any other album I would feel that this would be a sort of bridging track, an interlude so to speak. But here in "Nothing Further Beyond" I am just feeling a perpetual continuation.

"The Chariot"... Now I tried to brace myself for another purely instrumental assault and I was right to do so. However, I tried to add my own twist on this one in the form of conceptualising it. I found that by closing my eyes and imagine the scene at a hippodrome and I felt like I could see the carnage of the races (the scene its self was something from a favourite book of mine called Hawk). I found that this brought a new dimension to the music that I had bee missing previously. Finally, "The Great Beast" is another heavy, dense and trudging track that did take the EP out in a solid fashion.

Overall, it was different. Musically it was sound but I did find it quite difficult to keep my attention up for the full duration. I think the individualism of attacking this with no vocal lines at all is commendable and it will definitely be to a lot of people's tastes. However, for me it just didn't really do it, and that's fine because everyone's taste differs and I can appreciate this for what it is.