Artist: The Thermals Album: "Now We Can See" Genre: Post-punk, punk-pop Sounds Like: The Hold Steady, Built to Spill 55 Decibels Hummer offered The Thermals $50,000 to play its song, "It's Trivia," in a February 2006 Hummer commercial. Other indie-rock bands may have jumped at the opportunity, but Thermals guitarist Hutch Harris called the contract "so evil" and promptly turned it down. With that kind of irreverent confidence, one would think The Thermals had all the talent in the world. Listen to "Now We Can See," however, and guess again. Between its over the top political message and underwhelming vocals, the fourth album from the Portland indie-rock trio falls short in several respects. The album concept is, for starters, indicative of its quality: Harris and fellow band member Kathy Foster told Current TV that "Now We Can See" is a religious and political criticism of the U.S. government. "Our record is about a U.S. governed by fascist Christians," said Harris, in an interview with Douglas Cabaellero. Political record maybe, but poor vocals, no question. Songs like "When We Died," "I Let it Go," and "Now We Can See" start out with promising, upbeat rhythms, but when Harris opens his mouth, it sounds like he's just shouting into the mic for some trial and error recording experiment. "No Culture Icons" echoes this poor vocal trend and adds an obnoxious, repetitive refrain within seconds of the song's intro. Harris shouts "hardly art, hardly starving" throughout the song; it's impossible to tell if this is a sad attempt to sound more "indie," or if this is the band's real deal. Nevertheless, The Thermals rallies on tracks like "At the Bottom of the Sea" and "Now We Can See." "At the Bottom of the Sea" evokes tranquility with a slow trance melody, while "Now We Can See's" "oh-way-oh-a-whoa" chorus climbs up the pop ladder. It's a single that many will not be able to resist. Ultimately, The Thermals sound like a cross between post-punk acts The Hold Steady and Built to Spill and power-pop outfits like Rooney, with just a little less vocal skill and a lot more political ranting. The Thermals' morals may be in the right place, but listeners will be hard-pressed to decide if the same can be said of its latest album.
JMWein01@syr.edu
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