THIEF releases ‘Poison Drum’ single and video
THIEF, the dark electronic project of Dylan Neal, released the single and video “Poison Drum” from new album “Sermons from the Pit,” out November 27.
Photo credit: Milana Burdette
THIEF, the Los Angeles-based dark electronic project of multi-instrumentalist Dylan Neal, released the single and video “Poison Drum” on October 8. The track follows lead single “Moon and Kill” and is taken from Neal’s new album “Sermons from the Pit,” due November 27 on Prophecy Productions.
“Poison Drum” is available to stream on all digital platforms. “Sermons from the Pit” will be released as a 48-page two-CD hardcover artbook with bonus tracks, as a limited gatefold splatter bone-colored vinyl LP pressed to 250 copies, and as a black vinyl LP.
Dylan Neal on the ‘cathedral clipping’ technique behind ‘Poison Drum’
Neal describes “Poison Drum” as “the ninth stratum of the pit,” drawing on the Sanskrit concept of nirveda, a term for detachment and disillusionment with worldly pursuits. He said: “Its voice is that of a prophet and its technique is a snare. […] Can you hear the sound of the poison drum? This track prominently features a technique used throughout the album that I call ‘cathedral clipping’, where a sound – in this case a synth – is pushed first through a short convolution reverb and then completely obliterated in gain and re-amping.”
Neal recorded and mixed “Sermons from the Pit” himself. Mastering was handled by John Greenham, whose credits include Death Grips and Billie Eilish. The album’s eleven tracks are “Violent Bloom,” “Moon and Kill,” “Axe Swung Ritual,” “Mirror Mirror,” “Sun Slasher,” “Year of the Leech,” “Sermons from the Pit,” “Comet Sorcery,” “Poison Drum,” “Anaphora” and “Closing Scene.”
THIEF announces West Coast tour dates
THIEF will tour the West Coast in support of “Sermons from the Pit,” opening January 14 in Vancouver. Tickets go on sale October 14. Confirmed dates:
January 14 – Vancouver, BC @ Astoria January 15 – Seattle, WA @ Mountain Room January 16 – Portland, OR @ Azoth January 17 – Eugene, OR @ John Henry’s January 20 – Sacramento, CA @ Cafe Colonial January 22 – Santa Cruz, CA @ Crepe Place January 23 – Atascadero, CA @ No Quarter
About THIEF
THIEF is the solo studio project of Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist Dylan Neal, who was formerly the hammered dulcimer player in San Francisco experimental black metal band BOTANIST. Neal launched THIEF with “Thieves Hymn in D Minor” in 2016, followed by “Map of Lost Keys” in 2019 and “The 16 Deaths of My Master” in 2021. The same year, THIEF and BOTANIST released the split album “Cicatrix/Diamond Brush.”
Neal has described THIEF’s sound as “Dungeon Pop,” a fusion of trip-hop atmosphere, jungle and drum’n’bass rhythms, industrial textures, glitched choral samples and extreme distortion, built around a signature production approach he calls “cathedral clipping.” The project has been featured by Decibel and NOISEY, and its influences range from Portishead and Ulver to Tool and Nine Inch Nails.
THIEF’s 2024 album “Bleed, Memory” was a deeply personal record; “Sermons from the Pit” turns that introspection toward anger, grief, disillusionment, violence and spiritual questioning, arriving at what Neal describes as the possibility of empathy and release. While THIEF remains a solo studio project, Neal performs the material live with a full band, and will bring “Sermons from the Pit” to the West Coast in January.
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