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Since their formation in the winter of 2016 in Tamaki Makaurau, post-metal/doom quartet Thousand Limbs has continued to paint the most visceral of pictures with instrumental sound.

Crafting monumental moments of crushing metal, staggering riffs, and soundscapes that build and blister in and out of existence, their journey toward greatness will continue this summer with the official worldwide release of their debut album, The Aurochs.

Written and produced as a ten-song interpretation of the individual woodcuts that make up Kakuan Shien’s Ten Ox-herding Pictures, both the album and Shien’s art serve to illustrate the stages of one’s passage toward awakening – as well as their subsequent return to impart learned wisdom.

“It’s a sonic interpretation of a perpetual cycle of disconnection and reconnection with a spiritual practice,” explains guitarist, Patrick Gray. “The woodcuts act as an extra-musical guide, with a recurring motif representing the lost beast in the woods, disappearing then appearing again throughout the album.”

Following the release of two successful EP (Woe in 2018, 2020’s Mara), the band has teamed up once again with award-winning engineer Dave Rhodes and in The Aurochs produced a sprawling excursion through the wilderness of one’s own nature. As a narrative driven entirely by sound and passion it draws comparisons to acts like Earth, Bongripper and Neurosis, particularly on their latest single, ‘Fall of Body and Mind’. As guitarist Andrew Shaw details:

“Our latest single represents the eighth woodcut in the series and conveys a sense of meditative vastness, the meeting of all and nothing. We wanted the arrangement to make use of space: creating the void and slowly filling it. Tension builds and releases as the song progresses towards its climax.”

Joined onstage by live guitarist Grady Gottler, Thousand Limbs have already begun a series of shows across New Zealand in support of The Aurochs, which will receive an official worldwide release on 19th July 2024 via Azathoth Records. Pre-order here today.

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