Preface
Let me begin by pointing out the relationship I've had with Thursday's music. In high school, I hated emo music, or scene music, or screamo. Whatever you want to call it I hated it. I saw it as cheap, fake, and overdone. The whining, the lame metaphors, the white middle class melodrama bugged me. Maybe this is because I just didn't get it, or because it actually was all those things.
However, hate often implies a fear, and interest one does not want to admit to themselves. Aware of this, I began giving it a try. I even went so far as to dress the part for a while (because of a Halloween debacle that opened me up to the comfort of girl jeans). Anyways, I went and tested a great deal of "emo" bands out to see if there was any substance to them. Most did not. A few I enjoyed simply as pop music, but they didn't really have anything to say. Thursday was one of the bands I tried out. I hated them at first because the vocals threw me off; whiney, off key, no growl, and sporadic yells. However, one day I decided to grab their album "Full Collapse" which I'd stolen from my girlfriend and took it along with me on a road trip with my family. I listened to it song after song, and it still wasn't clicking. Not until the song "Flames In Paris" came on. There was a moment of clarity, where my hair stood on end. You know, the "wow these guys got it!" moment. Since then I've been fascinated with them. This only intensified as I got more and more into philosophy and began relating the ideas to their music (ideas which will be explored further down). I also stole their next album "War All The Time" from my girlfriend who had already dismissed them and was happy to get rid of it. This album clicked more. It explored former issues in a refined sense and was a great deal heavier while maintaining its melody. I lost interest for a while in the band, they'd signed to a major label and made a lame electronic tinged album that. Though, honestly, I've yet to give a good listen. It wasn't until I saw the title of their newest album "Common Existence" and learned that they were back on an independent label, owned by Bad Religion's guitarist Dave Fridmann, that I had took interest again.
Review
Former releases portray the almost unbearable state of modern life. Songs like "The Workforce Drowning" and "Division Street" explores suicide and the hopeless experienced as a reflection of the vast nihilism of life.
A lot of people often misunderstand the mention of this as somehow an advancement or advocacy of such action. However, I see their intention to be less malicious or emo and more proactive. It's a cry to do something about it. Bands like Thursday are simply using different tones and themes as their hardcore predecessors. Much like the way Fugazi are labeled as "emo" due to their evolution in delivery and expanding perspectives on issues tackled by hardcore, so too do Thursday suffer the same shallow criticisms. It's a matter of growth and some fans within and outside of the scene are unable to, or are too immature, to do the same. Sonically, the album comes across one dimensional. The structure is basically a wall of sound comprised of jangling guitar chords, distorted, consistent riffs, chimerical drums, and blistering, impassioned vocals over ringing keyboard melodies. A wall of sound reminiscent of the thick, almost blinding layers of stimuli one faces in everyday life. However, something breaks this dimension and enters deeper into the subconscious. You can feel the swell of the music.
Like when listening to an Iggy Pop song, he vamps on the same dense, distorted chords the whole song, but the swells are what make the song interesting and somehow intensely emotional. There is a subtle, yet powerful atonality and dissonance throughout the album. It's reflected in the tone of the lyrics; moody, depressing, yet remains eye opening. They entice one to dive inward. It is strange too how it fits into my head at the moment because I've been listening to free jazz and reveling in its overbearing atonality, dissonance, and musical chaos. This music thus acted as a crippling force onto how it can be effectively used in a way I would never have considered (that is, outside of improvisation or orchestration). Matthew Cole of Slant Magazine berates the record's lack of climax, but I feel this is quite in line with the theme of the record and band as a whole. Their philosophy and perspective on life is anticlimactic. An emphasis placed on the banality, desperation, and glazed over existence most of humanity, in suburban/urban America knows too well. The atonality of the band works as the most effective aphorism for their overall message. They use the music as a reinforcement of these emotions, which may be intentional or simply just an organic expression of their being as a group. You can feel the notes bouncing off one another with some chaotic calculation.
Rickly's lyrics are more a cry for action than a cry for self pity, an emotion we all must have experience at least once to qualify as a living human being. You know, to stare out into the world and feel imprisoned by the inability to scream at the top of your lungs and topple buildings with the sheer force of your conviction. This to me in inherently punk: a cathartic release of emotion. If you are going to critique this band as emo, as maybe you did when the trend was at its height, I respond with a stern "so what?" Maybe it was overdone but with the recent rise of auto tune, the inorganic spawn of Satan (in a bad way), what we need are emotions again. Music has lost a lot of its emotional impressionism-its authenticity.
Thursday are a musical representation of the 20th century spirit. I see pieces of Existentialism, Modernism, Post Modernism, and a great deal of Deconstructivism in their work. They make beauty out of ugliness, and life out of nothingness. The album is like an Albert Camus novel put to pissed off free jazz musicians picking up guitars and giving rock music a try.
To many, this may be a far off observation, but again it is the spirit of the band that I find so compelling in this light. They beautifully portray the mix of chaos and order seen that composes city living. The aesthetic is familiar, it lies in the awe of giant structures, the beauty of dilapidates houses, graffiti covered walls. For those who appreciate greyness, cloudy skies, winter, nights, and all the overlooked and written off states of life, this music will click with you. It's not emo. Emo is cheesy and superficial. This is relevant. It encapsulates real aspects of life people don't often admit to. Thursday cut too deep to be emo. Pun intended. People have an inherent fear of disorder and the emotions atonality elicits. They like neat little packages for their life to fit in, with 4 sides and a start and finish. Any hint of disorder evokes an intense anxiety. This is also true in music. Frank Zappa one said people like to decorate their lives with music, and I imagine they go about this in the same manner as they would their house. They choose nice, organized, and "fine tuned" decorations that make their lives easier to swallow. There is no room for this mess. Well fuck that. Wake up and smell the garbage folks. Until you begin to enjoy the smell of it, you're not ready to face up to reality.
Point being: buy this album, roll in garbage.
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