War All The Time [Enhanced]

A common criticism levelled at bands on their second or third album is that their sound has stagnated; their music has become merely formulaic. Apparently it is requisite for a band to reinvent their style every time they wish to release an LP. There are wonderful examples of bands moving their sound 'forward'; none of the brilliant Cave In's records sound remotely alike and Cursive's admission of Gretta Cohn (a Cellist) to their ranks was nothing short of inspirational. However some bands like Thrice have enjoyed continued critical acclaim without drastically changing their output, so it is wrong to say (as magazines such as Kerrang! did) that 'War All The Time' is a poor album because of its similarity to their previous full-length. Indeed one would surely consider it beneficial to be graced with an album reminiscent of 'Full Collapse'. It was a consistently brilliant album: 'Paris in Flames' featured spoken refrains that sounded so much like At the Drive-In, 'Cross Out The Eyes' provided a gripping rage that veered towards hardcore music and 'How Long Is The Night?' & 'Standing on the Edge of Summer' were perfect sing-along dystopian anthems. The fact that 'War All The Time' is nothing revolutionary does not make it a bad album. However it isn't a great album, and despite some cracking tracks, it is hard to avoid feeling that this album is like a low-calorie version of 'Full Collapse', 'Half Collapse' if you will.

As anyone who has heard Thursday live will testify, their presence onstage is enormous. Vocalist Geoff Rickly swings his microphone like a man possessed, whilst guitars screech and drums pound. On 'Full Collapse' it really seemed like all of Thursday's vivacity had been retained in the recording process, it wasn't raw and infectious in the way some post-hardcore can be, but it was nonetheless powerful. It is difficult to say where 'War All The Time' seems to lose this vitality. With the addition of Andrew Everding, a pianist, Thursday have clearly attempted to refine their sound, but to be honest the only impact seems to be that their intensity has been diluted. This is clearly exemplified by 'This Song Bought to You By A Falling Bomb'. It is squeezed between arguably the two finest tracks on the album, and it is perfectly 'nice' with its melancholic piano and whispered vocals, but it seems totally out of place, and detracts from the indisputable brilliance of 'Asleep In The Chapel' and 'Steps Ascending'. Elsewhere Thursday seem to be lacking too, the rather trite 'Signals Over The Air' is their weakest single to date, 'M. Shepard' and 'Between Rupture and Rapture' are really rather nondescript. It was hard to pick stand-out tracks on Thursday's last album, because of the continuous quality, but here the few tracks that are of high class really stand out, suggesting perhaps that 'War All The Time' suffers from an overdose of 'filler'.

Rickly remains one of the finest lyricists in modern rock. He shares the talent of songwriters like Ben Gibbard (Death Cab For Cutie) of being able to paint the most vivid of pictures with the most laconic use of words. In 'Steps Ascending' Rickly's account of losing his best friend never ceases to sound emotive, as the Bukowski referencing album title infers, each of these tracks sound like poetry set to music, although there is nothing here to match the beauty of 'Where the Circle Ends' from their first LP, 'Waiting'. The music video for the title track was banned in the US and although Rickly doesn't admit to any anti-governmental messages in the track discussion on www.Thursday.net, a frustration with US politics underlies a great deal of the anger in 'War All The Time'. It's certainly refreshing to Thursday attempt social comments for a change. However Rickly's words are more suited to poetry than politics, and sound rather hollow in comparison to anything written by the likes of Frank Turner (Million Dead).

'War All The Time' is a flawed album, but don't be put off, it is still immensely listenable and well worth purchasing. If you can somehow overlook the fact that every song here sounds similar to a previously-released Thursday song, then you'll love 'War All The Time' (indeed as I at first did). However an album has to be something special to deserve five stars and 'War All The Time', as good as it is, is not special. To end with a rather Jeremy Clarkson-esque pun: their last album collapsed spectacularly, this one feels more like it has been carefully dismantled.

The first track, For The Workforce, Drowning, is reminiscent in many ways of Jet Black New Year (from their last release, Five Stories Falling), but recent single, Signals Over The Air, seems most indicative of the tone of the whole album, a mix of rawness and beauty.

In my opinion, Thursday are nothing less than the best band in the world at the moment. Combining lyrical honesty with innovative music, they're exactly what the music industry needs right now.