THOT – Belgium-based art-rock collective release epic new concept album, ‘Delta’

Belgian industrial, post-rock collective THOT have released their fourth full-length album, ‘Delta’, through Berlin’s Pelagic Records.

A band existing in constant flux, THOT seem to thrive in the tumult of modern life and ‘Delta’, their first long form release since 2017’s breathtaking ‘FLEUVE’, is an even more ambitious musical melting pot of the people, places, spaces and times that have helped define the band to date. 

Like so many projects begun in and around 2019, ‘Delta’ was derailed by the pandemic, with the first iteration of the album scrapped entirely due to creative differences amplified by enforced social distancing. Band leader and principal songwriter Grégoire Fray, born in France but based in Belgium, found himself back at the beginning; now questioning his identity as an artist in the wake of such monumental events.

Channelling his despondency through THOT’s playful twist on chronological time, this crisis of faith became the catalyst for ‘Delta’s new shape. Fray found himself returning to the old recurring question of why he never sang in his mother tongue. Previously frustrated by its incompatibility with the Anglo-American guitar music he loved, Grégoire now found himself intrigued by his French’s fluidity when paired alongside English lyrics too.

Written, arranged, recorded and documented between late 2019 and 2023 by Fray alongside THOT collaborators Lukas Melville, Gil Chevingné, Stéphane Fedele, Anaïs Elba, Michael Thiel and Juliette Mauduit; ‘Delta’ is as much a product of the band’s past as it is their present, also featuring a true  collaboration with the women of ‘Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares’, an iconic Bulgarian traditional polyphonic choir previously sampled by THOT as well as the voice of award-winning Czech singer-songwriter Lenka Dusilová, who Fray met by chance through friends on the road. The album is a shifting collage of people, places, past and present, all stirred by THOT’s renowned grasp of cinematic, post-rock dynamics and cold-wave electronic orchestration.

Fittingly, the post-rock, prog-metal hurricane that is ‘Céphéide’ was imagined by Fray long before ‘Delta’ was conceived. The introspective, non-chronological themes and motifs of the record brought old emotions and insecurities to the fore; now viewed through the piercing lens of age and experience. Whether the bittersweet refrain of “I miss you” refers to a person, people, a place or even who our narrator was before, we’ll never know; but the full-throttle guitar euphoria and pounding, resounding drums behind them suggest that they are all the stronger, despite this absence so keenly felt.

Boundary-breaking by nature, THOT have been releasing a series of narratively interlinked videos alongside the singles from the record that feature some of the faces and places that helped bring ‘Delta’ into being, alongside characters and tales that have emerged from the creative process itself. The forthcoming ‘Céphéide’ video completes the series but, true to form, there is no true chronological order for the pieces to be watched in. Each video references elements of the others, but in defiance of the linear trajectory of time and the physical restrictions of place because THOT want their audience to define the story for themselves, to become part of it. 

In some ways, ‘Delta’ already is everyone’s story; a powerful, post-rock document of hope and perseverance against all odds, a narrative that has been shaped by so many people around the world.

‘Delta’ is out now.