Honestly (and legitimately) distressed by the direction his country has taken in the 21st-century, Hutch Harris of the Thermals can be an angry songwriter. "Pray for a new state/ Pray for assassination," he sang on "God and Country" in 2004, the year of the most soul-deadening American election of my lifetime. They're probably the two most infamous lines in the band's catalog, but they're not even the most crucial lines in "God and Country". Those come near the beginning: "I can hope, see/ Even if I don't believe."
Hope when all evidence suggests you should despair, honest confusion offered in place of stock rhetoric, music that sounds like it's fueled as much by joy as rage: The Thermals' moral indignation is never a bummer. Harris is no demagogue, just another guy looking for answers, just like me and you, and the band typically sounds like they're having a blast. Even at their angriest, the Thermals have turned out some of the giddiest, most super-charged punk of the decade.
This was one of punk's better life lessons, of course: We're regular folks, we've got our eyes open to the bullshit going down, but we're not going to let it grind us into apathy. We're going to use it. The Thermals understand that anger without energy (to gloss John Lydon) leads to cynicism, resentment, diffidence. If you're going to be angry, your music better not be a drag. And melodrama, however well-intentioned, is not the Thermals' bag. You sure as hell can't imagine them writing a grand concept album kvetching about suburban sprawl.
It's coincidental that they titled their new album Personal Life in a year of Big Indie Statements, but it does underline what makes them special. The Thermals were never a "political" band per se. On Personal Life, as on all of the Thermals albums, you get the sense that you're listening to an individual think out loud, puzzle through some shit, register the aforementioned hopes, confusion, and occasional joy. Sometimes that individual just happens to be thinking about the federal government, organized religion, and other ulcer-inducing topics.
Despite some obvious exceptions like "Power Lies", whose title says it all even if the lyrics are fairly vague, Personal Life is mostly relationship songs as far as I can read them. That hasn't dulled the passion of Harris' delivery; he gets just as worked up about love as he does about god and the president. I find that invigorating when compared to 2010's sea of lo-fi mumblers, but presumably his cracked-note intensity will still be off-putting to those who prefer singers with cooler heads and more controlled pipes.
What has changed is the music: This might be the least frantic record the Thermals have yet recorded. Bassist Kathy Foster is driving the songs more than ever; without her, "Not Like Any Other Feeling", with its almost negligible guitar hook, would collapse completely. Sure, there are a few interesting curveballs to make up for the energy deficit. "Never Listen to Me" is probably the closest the Thermals will ever get to dance-rock, which is to say not very close but still closer than you would have expected. But the songs that truly stick, as usual, are the rave-ups like "I Don't Believe You", with its perfect bubblegummy "oh-oh-a-oh" hook.
I have to admit that I do miss the messy, noisy, get-it-done-in-under-two-minutes Thermals. They were just so good at the ramshackle thing, the feeling that they were racing toward the finish line before one or all of their amps exploded. Personal Life is hardly a failure; much of it is excellent. But it's also missing that anger-meets-energy urgency that made the Thermals' early albums so undeniable. It's not quite clear that they've found a new approach to match it, at least just yet.
