Tholus is more of a project than an actual band. They began somewhere in the early nineties, but around 2000 the band was pretty much non-active. In 2004 founder Mike Johnson returned to create this album, but was unable to finish it. Dave Murray stepped in and got the job done, with the help of a massive collection of guest musicians. Here lies the result of three years of hard work; Constant.

What Tholus does is create heavily technical metal. The band started out mixing Carcass and Death with Frank Zappa and Chick Corea, which means you must be able to play some serious difficult shit. And that’s what they do here on Constant; Meshuggah like riffing and drumming from beginning to the end. Especially in the drum department some amazing tricks are pulled of with great expertise, probably due to the fact that the person who finished the record; mister Dave Murray, is the drummer for this band. In total, there are eleven people that contributed to this record in some way or another. Unfortunately, just like with Meshuggah, the vocals bore the crap out of me. Low roars that don’t really vary that much, and don’t really seem to entangle with the music itself, just adding an extra layer. Also I feel like the production misses a lot of high end, which is too bad.

 

And why spend three years on an album without giving it a concept. Tholus (which is half the name of a volcano on Mars, yes I did some research) deals with extraterrestrials, space, other dimensions, and other science fiction (or not) material. They even got Richard Hoagland, a scientist who firmly believes that there are/were advanced civilizations in the galaxy somewhere, to grant Tholus permission to use his voice on the album, further inspiring the band and making the concept complete. This I find interesting.

 

The album is an interesting listen, but due to the vocals a bit of the atmosphere is ruined in my opinion. For fans of highly rhythmical and technical metal this will be a great album, if that doesn’t stroke your poke then leave this one alone. To be honest the more I listened to it, the less interested I became. But I am curious about a next release though, let’s just hope that doesn’t take another three years.