01 Our Trip
02 Every Stitch
03 How We Know
04 When You’re Thrown
05 Remember Today
06 A Stare Like Yours
07 Let Your Earth Quake, Baby
08 God and Country
09 End to Begin
10 Forward
11 Keep Time
12 Top of the Earth
Album info
Since so much three-chord punk has gotten stale, this Portland, Oregon trio often strips down to just two chords–which makes those moments when they do splurge on that third precious bundle of notes staggeringly climactic. The Thermals have just one basic melody, but it’s a great one, and like the finest bluesmen, their brilliance is in the variations they work over these standard changes. Except these variations aren’t solos–they’re gradations of emotional tone and feedback burst and Hutch Harris’ clearly enunciated rants. There’s a political underpinning to this all–the lyrics on the elliptical yet scathing “God and Country” (“Pray for a new state/ Pray for assassination”) draws the line pretty clearly. But even here, Harris chooses not to rail against the powers that be, but instead to express solidarity with a likeminded constituency, declaring “History will show our progress is slow/ When we win/ We win in inches.” –Keith Harris