So.
I’m supposed to be reviewing Thursday’s new album Common Existence. It’s the band’s first album to be released on Epitaph Records. It’s the 5th full length album of their twelve year career. It lives up to Thursday’s signature high-energy multi-layered sound, and the music seems good.
The reason I say “seems”, is because the recording/production/mastering value on this CD is so crappy, every song on it seemed to melt into the next without distinguishing itself from the song before it. I couldn’t pick out a “favorite song”. There wasn’t a song that made me want to play it over and over again, singing along. For the majority of the time I was listening to the album, I couldn’t even pick out what Geoff Rickly (lead singer) was singing about.
The album was recorded at Dave Fridmann’s Tarbox Road Studios, and I kind of wonder if maybe his studio is literally a box full of tar. The vocals sound like they are being sung through a can, in a garage. The drums sound like they were recorded in the same can. All of the instruments are mixed too high, and drown out the vocals throughout most of the songs. This is a big mistake for a band that is so lyrically driven.
All of these things put together makes for a very messy sounding album that is almost immediately forgettable.
As far as I can tell, Thursday brought the rock like they always do. Concerning Common Existence the band has said that Epitaph really encouraged them to be more socially and politically active, leading to songs like the very personal “Friends in the Armed Forces”. I really can’t wait to see them play some of these songs live, since I really had a hard time enjoying the recordings of them.
Verdict:
-Thursday is still awesome
-This album probably has some very good songs on it
-Dave Fridmann and the production crew at Tarbox Road Studios really dropped the ball on this one.
