| CD REVIEW Thursday |
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Band : Thursday Oh wow...what a delightful evolution this band went through since the release of their previous album Common Existence (review with history of the band posted 09/02/2009)! But more about that later...first an update, right? To promote Common Existence, the band headlined the 2009 Taste Of Chaos Tour in North America (with support from Bring Me The Horizon, Four Year Strong, Pierce The Veil, Cancer Bats, and a local act per locality)...but that tour (starting on Valentine's Day and ending April 9) was not a pleasant experience, most of the audience leaving just after BMTH had played, leaving only 10 % of the audience for Thursday. I'm not sure whether any additional live promotion of the album was done. At any rate the guys were back in the studio (Tarbox Road Studios) with producer Dave Fridmann (already produced he band's 2 previous albums) to record their new album in July 2010. This time around the band had no demos at all, but the album's material was written within a week (previous albums had taken the band 6 months to a year to compose). In order “to keep the songs fresher”, the actual recording sessions were done in several 2-week sessions with a month's time-off in between. With the recordings for the new album behind 'em, the band went on a US tour with Underaoth earlier this year, playing the complete set of their favourite album, 2001's Full Colapse, each evening. It was meant as a farewell to the Thursday of old...something which is reflected in the new album's title, which translates as “no return” from Spanish! Different from on previous albums is also the fact that singer Geoff Rickly did nót write any guitar parts for this album, leaving each of the members to fill in his own contribution to the whole...and maybe that's why stylistically, the new album is different in that it is far more atmospheric than the band's older material. There's reminiscences to early '90s Shoegazer, and the band's fascination for Swervedriver is certainly the underlaying current here! Gone are most of the early Hardcore influences, and instead come experimentation, plus Indie and Art Rock elements! Although there's some rare vocal outbursts (in the couple of heavier passages on the album), the sound is overall calmer than before as well, and the Emo aspect in the vocals has been exchanged for a dark and brooding mood (apparently Rickly's marriage was “on the rocks” during the writing process of the alum, and some of that evidently was reflected in both the mood and lyrics. Overall the band alternates calmer with “harsher” passages in most songs, though in some songs that happens with more extreme differences. Then, with “Empty Glass”, the band brings a completely calmer track (call it the album's ballad by all means) based around vocals and keyboards, with a little added drums in the last minute of the song. According to the band's page on Wikipedia (from which my updates on the band were partly culled) the album closing “Stay Tuned” was originally an improvised studio warm-up based around a guitar part, and each day a new instrumental was recorded, some versions lasting up to 20 minutes. The near 8-minute song version (lyrics were written about Hardcore band Touché Amoré) on the album was the band's favourite. Personally, I absolutely lóve what the band did here, and it all sounds like a very natural progression from their last work. Quite a few (far more influential than myself) music journalists (AbsolutePunk, Punknews.org, Rock Sound, Spin, Sputnikmusic, the A.V. Club) have felt the same, giving the album top ratings. Check out a foursome of full-length tracks off the new album (alongside a host of other audio an video tracks off older album) at (www.) myspace.com/thursday. Just so you know, the album is also released in the form of a double LP package, and there's also a limited edition CD designed by paper craft artist Mia Pearlman (a little collectable for the fans, limited to only 500 copies). Yeah...year-list material, and an absolute must-buy for people into the better Shoegazer or Post-Rock genres. 98/100 Tony. |