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Thrice
The Artist In The Ambulance
2003, Island
I‘m so sick unto death of hearing the entire underground revolt whenever one of ‘our own‘ signs to a big label/opens for a huge band/etc etc etc, and even more so nowadays when, in the ever-cyclical music business, the underground evolves into the mainstream and, inevitably according to "the scene", immediately sets about watering down their lyrical firepower and generally compromising themselves at the feet of The Almighty Dollar.
Whew. An entire paragraph using only one sentence. I must‘ve really needed to vent my spleen over this issue. Now, look, I‘ve heard Thrice‘s earlier work, okay? They were decent; nothing more or less, and with some songs I truly disliked. I‘ll concede without question that a lot of bands who sign big label contracts devolve from that point on (see Boysetsfire, egads), but Thrice, Under Island Records‘ banner, have made one amazing record, and it‘s amazing partly because of its sheer simplicity despite being on a major. To illustrate: punk rock‘s burgeoning California outlet spewed forth this quartet, this Thrice we speak of, and no matter heavy they are (and some of these songs are really heavy, especially ‘Silhouette‘ and ‘Blood Clots and Black Holes‘), these guys are forever slaves to a fantastic, simplistic sense of melody. They chose to work with ‘underground‘ producer Brian McTernan, but a really slick polish applied to these songs was supplied by master mixer Andy Wallace, who goes back a very long time in the popular-music timeline.
What can I say? These songs blow me away, and even though some albums that I truly love sometimes don‘t stand up to sustained daily listening, this one surely does. Masterful. Buy it.