Thursday: Common Existence

When a snowflake falls on the street, to some it is an example of unparagoned life, to others it is a precursor to encumbrance. To Thursday's front-man Geoff Rickley, it is a microcosm of human existence. A place where lyricism can be shrouded in a mist of allegorical reverb. A land where every action has a sound, every moment possesses deliberate reasoning and every consequence is absorbed into the immense embodiment of nature only to be returned unto us.

The world has shifted from being War All the Time to one where the things that ail us make up our very being: our Common Existence. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

So far, so serious. A trait which has seen the band on the receiving end of a barrage of criticism. For you see, to be involved in music, one must have a sense of humour. Lost your spouse in a foreign altercation? Surely you need to remark how you need their pension like they need a hole in the head. Been the subject of domestic abuse? Surely you can regale with the fact that 20% of women have admitted to being a recipient of household violence... the other 80% daren't open their mouths. Should you fail to adhere to these rules, you will be decried as "tastelessly over-the-top melodrama" ^[1].

In spite of all this, it is doubtful that it was Rickley's writings that brought you to the Thursday party. The band made their name in juxtaposing delicate and graceful melodies with barrages of noise and anguished screams. For vastly inferior examples see: every post-hardcore band. As soon as they'd assured themselves a spot in every awful MySpace band's 'influences' section, they moved on. War All the Time expanded the diverse chord structures and complex melodies of the band while amping up the aggression whereas A City By the Light Divided saw them experiment with shoegaze-style production and marked new terrain for Rickley's vocals. (i.e "Where it reaches the end of line" from 'Running From the Rain')

Common Existence falls somewhere in the middle of these two previous albums. The electronic swirls and atmospherics of City..., and its producer, set beside the kinetic ferocity of War.... As such, examples of sonic diversity are rife. One could select the string arrangements of "Beyond the Visible Spectrum", the throbbing dissonance of the guitars on "Last Call" embodying the effect of a song recorded in a subway tunnel as locomotives approach, the reverse-filtered swirls of "Time's Arrow" coupled with layered vocalisations which promote a sinister edge to a dirge of regret. "Circuits of Fever" is likely the best example of the lengths to which this band can stretch to when coupled with producer David Fridmann. Here the band make sweet love to the twitching corpse of My Bloody Valentine (the band, not the film). Dizzying loops of sonic metamorphosis. It's a song making desperate grabs for life as it circles the drain of a black hole, before exploding into a red dwarf supernova of triumphant celebration.

Fridmann has thankfully managed to bring the band's screamed vocals back up to scratch. Any who witnessed the abysmal slaughtered-frog instances showcased on "At this Velocity" from the band's previous album would immediately wonder how long this man had left to live and if we could do anything to ease his pain. On Common Existence though, painful screeches have been replaced with powerful bursts of raw emotive brutality. Which brings us to...

"You Were the Cancer" is the track everyone came for. If there was a can marked "Breathtakingly feral and ear-numbingly beautiful", this song would be inside that can. It seamlessly combines the experimental nature of the band as well as the primal beast which lurks within and restores their reputation as a band who know how to finish an album.

Finishing is easy, maintaining high standards throughout is not. The second-half of Common Existence loosens the slack a minutia with a few examples of nondescript songwriting. "Unintended Long Term Effects" is marred by a reliance on an unremarkable riff and vocals which rarely stretch beyond buried ruminations. At barely two minutes in length, it's a brief moment of filler. "Subway Funeral" similarly lacks much to set it apart besides the simple keyboard mantra which infrequently protrudes from the song. Allow an 'average' Thursday song to go on for long enough though, and they often provide relief with a contrast of impressiveness following the bridge. Sure enough, "Subway..." strips itself down to the lightest of touches before allowing itself to be corrupted by decaying percussion.

Album number five reinforces the notion that Thursday are a band unafraid to keep moving in a world where one divergence can cost a thousand fans. The bands seeking to clutch on their coat-tails have long since lost their grip. Commercialism requires that someone concoct an idea and repeat it until it becomes unprofitable, art dictates that you give birth to a concept before releasing it and retreating to nurture further notions. Safe to say: Thursday are artists.