The Thermals - The Body, The Blood, The Machine

Genre rock Publisher Sub Pop External Links Official The Thermals Website Official Sub Pop Records Website

At first listen, Portland Oregon's The Thermals latest album titled The Body, the Blood, the Machine may sound like nothing more than another whiney, pissed off at the government pop-punk record. However, for some strange reason, I just can't stop listening to it. The hooks are simple yet wonderfully infectious. The tempo is angry yet upbeat. And even those whiney lyrics are well written and sadly true.

Most impressive is the fact that the band seems to so effortlessly tear through an entire album of great songs; hell, there's no point in even mentioning favorites because they're all good. Maybe it has something to do with the whole third time being a charm thing; this is after all their third album, the first two More Parts Per Million and Fucking A being decent, but coming up just short of this kind of catchiness.

Halfway through the album, the band's original drummer bailed and left lead singer Hutch Harris and bassist Kathy Foster to pick up the beats. The extra work load must have kicked off some kind of frantic creative energy in the studio because it's that formula that makes the album's ten short songs shine as they play right into one another giving it the sound of hard work, fun and simplicity. Another reason I like The Thermals is because Harris looks uncannily like Stephen Malkmus.