Oregon’s Thermals are back for their third full-length release on Subpop. What started as a garage outfit that recorded their first full-length entirely on 8-track tape has turned into a blistering powerhouse of huge sounding guitars and drums.
Though the songs are all well written and still mostly maintain a three-chord structure that somehow feels so much more sophisticated than any pop punk you’ve ever heard, the higher production value on The Body, The Blood, The Machine feels like I’m being cheated.
Yes, this record sounds absolutely amazing. If you could program a computer to perfectly re-create the sound of grungy guitars over-laden with distortion, this would be your model – but can a three-piece band really sound this full?
They don’t, and their first release celebrated that while each release since then has seemed to get farther and farther away from that until we wind up here with the catchiest of hooks and the biggest sounding guitars ever. As a delicious treat to my ears, no contemporary guitar rock record could compare, but I know that this just isn’t what the band sounds like.
And though the thin-sounding production of the first Thermals record seemed to make much more of a statement than what I’m getting from this record, I’ll be damned if a few more listens to The Body, The Blood, The Machine might just be enough to make me fall in love with the direction The Thermals are taking rock music.
– Chris Smith
The Thermals (Subpop)