Dylan Neal describes his solo project Thief as “hard to market.” No argument there. Take glitchy grooves, melodic clean vocals and various tonal experimentations born out of samples of extremely old sacred music (sounds kinda sweet, right?), then pitch them down into the bleakest, blackest of personal hells, both sonically and conceptually. The yield is pretty damn niche, but it’s also led to a still-unfurling variety of sounds that have played out over five full-length albums and a few contributions to other releases. We’ve loved everything we’ve heard so far, so when we learned that the most recent recording, Sermons from the Pit, is due out this November 27th on Prophecy Productions, we were excited to get in touch and learn more.
Neal had this to say about the song and its relationship to the album as a whole:
“Sermons from the Pit moves through these stages of frenetic energy which are tempered by sullen, meditative moments of respite. ‘Moon and Kill’ is a microcosm of that, encapsulating the album’s broader thematic movement from rage to despair and acceptance. It features a production technique I dubbed ‘Cathedral Clipping”: the process of annihilating a sound with short reverb and gain-stacking used throughout the album, which you can hear starting around 1:08. The ending is one of my favorite moments on the album, where the vocals are just kind of cooing over a time-stretched organ and choral sample. The track’s voice oscillates between executioner and victim. At the risk of stealing the listener’s meaning away, I’ll speak of the track by saying that when love and trust collapse, the same anger and disbelief experienced by murderers and saints alike are experienced. Which implement do you choose? Weapon or forgiveness?”
Decibel also had the opportunity to interview Neal in more depth for a coming magazine feature. Below are a few informative comments he had that we couldn’t stuff into the article.
Decibel: I know that your last record was rooted in personal family tragedy. Are the songs on Sermons from the Pit also tied together thematically? What do you feel drove your lyrical approach as these songs came together?
Neal: Yeah, Bleed, Memory had a lot to do with my father’s collapse into dementia and treated memory almost as an entity. Sermons has a much looser thematic thread. I knew the album was going to be called Sermons from the Pit even before I knew what it was going to be “about.” I just loved the title. And then 2025 turned out to be a pretty brutal year. My lot included the unceremonious end of a long term relationship, the loss of a good job, some real financial hardships, etc. Los Angeles catching on fire was the harbinger. So the approach became this idea of using all of this as grist for the mill. I created a “pit schema” for the album that functions as a sort of creative guide or codex that is included in the vinyl and artbook. It outlines the song’s color, weapon of choice and viewpoint.
Decibel: Press for Thief tends to mention your residence in a Buddhist temple. Is this something that’s pretty familiar and routine that you think gets sensationalized? Or is this fact something central to you that does, indeed, have an important meaning to your lifestyle and your art?
Neal: It’s really just familiar and routine for me. The last 13 years of my life have been pretty organized around it. On the one hand, it really isn’t this esoteric or bizarre thing, but on the other hand, I can recognize that it definitely isn’t a normal life trajectory, haha. I don’t write about it. I’m sure themes slip in, as I can’t help but see things through a certain lens, but I’m totally loath to sing about anything like that. It can give art a real repugnant stench. While it’s very central to my life, I don’t know about art. I think the only way it influences my art is in my relation to it and how I work. I’m pretty ADHD so having some tools on focusing is helpful and writing is a great way to confront and practice with your mind and its patterns.
Decibel: Over Thief’s existence, how have you thought about developing your vocal style? Are there particular vocalists whose techniques you feel you’ve incorporated into your own approach or the way your voice melds into your own music?
Neal: You know, I really don’t think I got comfortable with my voice until Bleed, Memory. Singing was never something I was naturally good at, so I had to practice a lot, and you can kind of hear that throughout the records. I think the biggest development was adding in more extreme vocals, which didn’t really happen until [2021’s] 16 Deaths. I had always wanted to but the material didn’t provide a place for it until then. I’ve been told I sound like a bunch of people, but I rarely hear what they’re hearing. When I’m listening back to my music critically, I usually find myself thinking, like, “God that is such a Dax Riggs phrasing” or “Stop trying to scream like Maynard, you sound like a quail!” They were big influences, along with Bjork. I learned how to belt from Bjork, to whimper like Maynard and to whisper evil, backwards messages from Dax Riggs.
Decibel: How complicated is it to pull off a Thief live set? Have there been any times when things went off the rails and you learned ways you wanted to do things differently? Have there been transcendent successes?
Neal: We’ve got the live set pretty dialed in nowadays, but it was quite the journey getting there. I really started off not knowing how the fuck to do any of this live, as my past experience with bands was just plugging in a guitar or a mic. But I wanted this to be a real live experience. We have to have playback tracks for the samples and shit, but then we are recreating the songs live with drums and bass while I’m also playing keys or manipulating the samples in somewhat of an improvised way while singing. I think anytime that I’m performing, and I suddenly realize that I have no memory of how we got to a particular part of the set, means it’s a success. But, oh man, yeah, there have been two or three total live derailments early on. I have literally kicked over my keyboard stand that is the brains of the operation, stopping the show in its tracks. Twice. That was embarrassing.
Sermons from the Pit is set for release on November 27th through Prophecy Productions. Place your preorder here. Check out more from Thief at Bandcamp, too.
