The Thermals : Now We Can See

<img src="http://www.qromag.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/thethermalsnowwecansee.jpg" alt=" " />What is so special about The Thermals?  Still can't answer that with their latest, <i>Now We Can See</i>. ...
6.1 Kill Rock Stars
2009 

The Thermals : Now We Can See

What is so special about The Thermals?  Currently with their fourth album, Now We Can See – their first on new label Kill Rock Stars, after leaving Sub Pop – the Portland, Oregon duo of singer/guitarist Hutch Harris and bassist/studio drummer Kathy Foster (they’ve gone through a number of tour drummers) inspires this intense affection from a legion of young fans.  Yet their pop-punk, while often catchy, is hardly revelatory – or even that special.

‘Young’ might be the key word here.  If The Thermals were the first alt- band you’d ever heard, they might fit perfectly for teens just discovering indie-rock.  And even as one grew older, there would still be some affection (like people of a certain, older age have for Green Day), but hopefully you would move on into further, better things.  The Thermals haven’t.  Other than dropping the lo-fi of home-recorded 2003 debut More Parts per Million, and dropping the overt religious commentary of their last record, 2006’s semi-concept album The Body, The Blood, The Machine, the band still plays the same catchy, garage-y pop-punk on Now We Can See.  Sometimes that catch picks up a bit, like with “We Were Sick” or the strummier title track/single – but there’s also a number of forgettable tracks like “Let It Go” in between, or the lacking in substance “Liquid In, Liquid Out”.

A couple of songs on Now do see The Thermals get a little slower and sway more, like “At the Bottom of the Sea” and “How We Fade”, but other than servings as changes on the record, they’re nothing there to write home about.  The brighter outlook of finisher “You Dissolve” does add something, but the staccato of “When I Was Afraid” makes it annoying, not catchy, while the swing of the preceding “I Call Out Your Name” (lots of pronouns throughout the record) is a little emo in Harris’ vocals.

There are certain bands that don’t change their particular sound, are liked by a certain section of people, and nothing’s going to change that (think Spinto Band – QRO album review).  “Going to a Thermals show is like… going to a Thermals show,” someone once said, and a Thermals record is… a Thermals record.  And that’s that.

MP3 Stream: “Now We Can See

{audio}/mp3/files/The Thermals – Now We Can See.mp3{/audio}

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