The Thermals - 'Fuckin A' (Sub Par) Released 28/06/04

Friends, this is the best punk album I’ve heard in a long ass time.  ****in A is twelve tracks of back-to-the-basics punk done right. Littered with cringe-rousing distortion, smooth bass lines and cleanly timed drums, The Thermal’s latest masterfully walks the line between disorganization and over-production.

It’s the follow up to 'More Parts Per Million', the breakthrough work recorded in frontman Hutch Harris’ one bedroom house on a four-track cassette recorder.  Harris’ vocals are spoken and purposely over-pronounced like Cake’s John McCrea (except faster).   It’s great work from Chris Walla of Death Cab for Cutie, who produced both records. 

The first three tracks are brilliant. ‘Our Trip’ is a modern punk anthem, and deserves to have the career-establishing effect that ‘Longview’ and ‘Dammit’ had as first singles.  ‘Every Stitch’ rocks just as hard as the first track until ‘How we Know” and ‘Remember Today’ reveal their ability to slow down and play good mellow music.

'A Stare like Yours' is one of those rare punk love songs that works.  Like most bands recently, The Thermals added a politically motivated track, ‘God and Country,’ "history will show / our progress is slow / when we win / we win in inches".  There’s no predictability to the music or lyrical structure on this record at all, but more importantly, the Portland trio nail each style variation they feel like trying.  Basically, ‘****in A’ is really ****in’ good.