Portland, Oregon natives the Thermals have been hovering on the periphery since their 2003 debut, delivering solid records to undersized acclaim. The band's third album, The Body, The Blood, The Machine, conjures an America piloted by some sort of Christian-fascist regime ("They'll pound you with the love of Jesus...They'll own your days/ They're only God's babies/ They follow, they know"), and traces the frantic, fiery flight of an ex-pat and his girl ("I can see she's afraid/ That's why we're escaping/ So we won't have to die, we won't have to deny/ Our dirty God, our dirty bodies"). The Body's story is just vague and gruesome enough to be weirdly terrifying, totally Orwellian, and grander, louder, and more electrifying than anything the Thermals have spit out before.
Original drummer Jordan Hudson ditched the band in 2005, meaning that during the recording of this album guitarist/vocalist Hutch Harris and bassist Kathy Foster were twitching for three, bouncing around from instrument to instrument, filling in the gaps, injecting percussion, keyboards, organs, bass, and plenty of guitar into their lo-fi basement punk. Produced by Fugazi drummer Brendan Canty, The Body is appropriately reminiscent of the Thermals' previous two full-lengths, but far more ambitious in narrative and sound-- the production is cleaner, Harris' vocals are less prickly and more impassioned, and every slammed chord soars. Both in theory and execution, The Body, The Blood, The Machine hits like a less playful, less suburban American Idiot, its apocalyptic, heavily religious iconography conveniently layered over pounding, Ramones-style pop-punk.
Foster's drums and Harris' weird vocal syntax (which contains echoes of the Mountain Goats' John Darnielle) are nicely propulsive, and The Body, The Blood, The Machine cuts off before it runs the risk of getting too repetitive. But the results of its 38 minutes are still chilling. Harris' imagined landscape is severe and grisly, leaving us all to sprint for cover, curling under desks, hands over heads, fingers crossed: These tracks land like bombs.
