The Thermals: Now We Can See
I thought I had The Thermals pegged. Their last three albums were abrasive blasts of righteous indignation. I expected more of the same with Now We Can See, but I was greeted with jangly guitars, happy Bay City Rollers drums and *gasp* harmonies! Has the end of the Bush administration tampered the focused anger of Hutch Harris?
Musically, yes. The group’s last album, The Body, The Blood, The Machine, was so abrasive that it could be hard to listen to. It was mass of distorted guitars, punishing drums and Harris’ passionate vocals. Those elements are still there, but now they are balanced. For every blast of distortion, there is poppy melody to even it out. Harris’ voice still has some bile, but he sings rather than yelps. He has a real flair for writing pop hooks, something I never thought I’d hear from The Thermals. “At the Bottom of the Sea” is a stellar ballad, starting out slow and building to a giant crescendo. “When I Died” sounds like it could be a Raspberries song, albeit with an angrier Eric Carmen.
The music is mellower, but the lyrics are never as clear cut. At the end of the last record, The Thermals died in a nuclear holocaust. So they’ve either scrapped that entire storyline or they have written these songs (theoretically of course) from beyond the grave. They imagine several elaborate deaths for themselves, many of which involve psychosis. The one constant image in this record is the sea. There could be many reasons for this. The most obvious is that the sea is always changing, just our world. The second, it sustains so many different lifeforms. I think Harris is fascinated by the idea that the sea can support life, but it can also take it away. This record is all about confronting our eventual demise.
The happy melodies are very deceiving. My initial thought was that The Thermals had nothing to be angry about because Obama was elected president. But with every listen, you realize that Harris doesn’t see a liberal administration as an invitation to relax. We’ve won a small battle perhaps, but we’re confronted with a whole new set of problems. Compare this record to Springsteen’s Working on a Dream, and you have two very different visions of our world. The catchy melodies are a masterstroke, because they make the message much easier to swallow.
Now We Can See is an odd record because on one hand, it’s really accessible. They aren’t bashing you over the head with distortion this time. On the other hand, it’s as difficult as the rest of their catalog. Criticizing the Bush administration was easy. For better or for worse, he provided a lot of cannon fodder. Are the typical young, liberal music fans ready to hear a record that doesn’t lionize Barack Obama as a saint? I don’t have the answer to that question. We are headed for rough times, and we are confronted with impending doom on a daily basis. The Thermals have reminded us of this, but with honey rather than vinegar.
