Tithe took shape after vocalist and guitarist of Matt Eiseman and drummer Kevin Swartz hit pause on their grindcore project Infinite Waste and moving up from Oakland to Portland. Sounding like a pagan, mongrel hardcore punk hybrid of sludge and ‘90s death metal, Tithe shriek into the whirling, emptiness of the sky, demanding that the universe offer answers for their regrettable existence. What works so well thematically on Penance, is how Tithe incorporates sources of tangible pain in the world into a sound that feels like it's baying against the fabric of reality itself. The sources for any spiritual and psychological crisis are always going to be material and social in nature, with your subjective experience extending outward as a world-altering, cosmic force. These themes are clearly illuminated by the trudging dirge of “Scum” which begins with a clip of dialogue from Todd Solondz’ "comedy" Happiness before diving into a cold pool of lightless Dead Congregation-esque grooves, dragged further into the mire by a ripping tow of blast beats and lung-filling sludge guitars. “Apostasy” and opener “A Single Rose” similarly prove space for the band to lash out at their sorrows, weaponizing their disillusionment to tear down false idols. Elsewhere, deranged experiments with LSD and cruel psychiatric treatments are examined and morally eviscerated through wheeling, bucking guitar melodies and light-extinguishing, arid howls on “Psychedelic Neurogenesis” and “Lullaby,” both interspersed with disturbing clips of conversations pulled from news broadcasts on the topics.
Ultimately though, it's the track “Palindrome” where everything comes together, a tight and visceral framing of a gnawed and gnarled mind, with rushing sweeps of Autopsy-grind beats and frantic, sawing guitar chords which tear at the tracks innards as if it were performing its own vivisection, prying open the cavity of its chest to peer inside the hollow of its trunk to glimpse the depthless lacuna inside, with lyrics depicting the death presaged by every birth.
We are all tiptoeing on the rim of annihilation, unable to pull ourselves back, and unwilling to throw ourselves in. The war each of us wages against the mind and the world it must inhabit is an endless squabble of pitched battles and ceaseless losses. Each day we rise, a part of us dies and leaves another hole. And yet we continue to live knowing full well that someday there will be nothing left of us but the pain that passed through these holes, like wind whistling through the gaps and cracks of an old pane of glass.
