Portland, Oregon’s the Thermals shouted and clattered through their first two albums like they couldn’t believe they’d written such good songs: infectious, two-minute pogo-stick soundtracks with singer Hutch Harris holding the microphone too close to his face and every instrument trying to get to the end first. The Body, The Blood, The Machine is the sound of the band with both feet firmly planted. The hooks are plentiful as ever, but shaped — with cleaner production and a more sustained sense of songcraft — into a set of compact anthems. Their quaking urgency matches the lyrics, a linked, paranoid narrative of resistance and submission amid the ominous, oppressive forces of religion and government (“Give us what we’re asking for/’Cause God is with us and our God’s the richest/Our power doesn’t run on nothing/It runs on blood and blood and blood is easy to obtain”). From the title up, everything about the record is a statement — of existence, of purpose, of vitality. Attention must be paid.
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