Review Summary: …to a new level in quite a messy way
Emo Classics Series: Episode VII
In the previous reviews of this series, the albums that I reviewed are generally about personal issues and teenage dilemma. However, some albums actually incorporate political themes into their music. For example, the New Jersey post-hardcore outfit
Thursday’s landmark sophomore album—Full Collapse, is one of such albums. Even though the material is quite different compare to most of the band, it still bears every other Emo features, such as thrashing yet poppy melodies, cathartic singings, heavy riffs, relatable (yet often violent) lyrics, showing an Emo album can be politically universal and mosh-pit friendly without the songwriters indulging themselves in their personal memories. Full Collapse is perhaps an expansion of the definition of Emo at the time, as the term can also mean non-mainstream pop music that is apathetic towards the political state at the time, instead of only focusing on personal melodrama.
If you ever wonder how Thursday ties politics and the Emo sound together, then the opener “A0001” and its sequel/album closer “1100” alone have already show that Thursday is not your typical Emo band who simply document their bad days into their songs, with frontman Geoff Rickly sings in both tracks, “We’ll all look the same someday and even now the robot starts to talk,”, suggesting about the depersonalisation in society and the advancement of artificial intelligence. He even continues in “1100” about the tide is high on 14th Street and there’s no safe way out, suggesting about the global warming which leads to the high tide. If you are still not really convinced that Thursday have a knack of creating political songs, then proper songs such as “Autobiography of a Nation” and “Paris In Flames” sure will convince you:the grunge-tinged latter finds Rickly discusses about the horrifying culture imperialism, as he dropped shocking lines such as “We have burned their villages and all the people in them died /We adopt their customs and everything they say we steal” and “We erased all their images and dance and replaced them with borders and flags”, revealing the appalling ways of how large countries dominate the world culturally; the thrash-metal-like “Paris In Flames”, with its title referencing the documentary “Paris Is Burning”, confronts the society for being stubborn of accepting homosexuality and transgender culture(“After all the things you say /You hate me for being this way”) and being responsible for the economic downfall (“Businessmen hang themselves”). These songs alone, with the help of Rickly’s off-key wailing, exhibits the band has wider views and darker sound than most of their contemporaries, without jettisoning their trademark mosh-friendly sound and cathartic lyricisms, which helps them to stand out in the third wave Emo scene.
The band also can discuss social issues in the album as well, whether was it discussing domestic abuse that the abuser tries to hide in an abusive romance (“Concealer”), loathing about the worsening social dystopia and global warming (“Cross Out The Eyes”) and facing their own identity crisis (“I am the Killer”), the band shows how they details the ugliness of the society in a grimly poetic fashion that recalls goth rock legends
The Cure, yet still relatable enough for teenagers to listen. With thought-provoking and diary-worthy lyrics such as “The room explodes and now this blood is on your hands” (from “Concealer”) and “I am no killer, but I still hide my face in the coming days” (from “I am the Killer”), they really sculpture the darkness of the world and teenager’s pain, and setting themselves a league of their own in the genre.
Despite the band mainly touched on sociopolitical issues in the album, they also shined some personal, introspective moments as well. For instance, the album highlight/lead single “Understanding In a Car Crash” is a profound, detailed document of a car crash in the perspective of a new driver dealing with such tragedy, as Rickly details how the driver trying to forget it, evident in the chorus line “Time to let this pass” and the line “No reason to come back again”, and the song lingers with Rickly’s own mesmerising vocals and muffled screams, which serves as an unlikely anthem to remind many of us to forget a traumatic pain;”Standing on the edge of The Summer”, meanwhile, seems to be a conversation between Rickly and his dying grandmother, as he seems to lament about ageing and being knocked down, reminding that our youthful times may vanish very quickly, as if you are the you fell off from the edge of the summertime;”A Hole in the World”, on the other hand, is a mourning about a romantic relationship breakdown, as Rickly sees the relationship being crashed down. These songs alone, shows Thursday is not just a political band with punk and goth-rock tendencies, as the band also exhibit their vulnerable sides.
Unfortunately, Full Collapse itself also suffers from several flaws. For instance, the structure of some songs in the album, such as “I am the Killer” and the filler track “Wind Up” and “How Long Is The Night❓”, are quite fragmented and the album does not generally have the catchy pop hooks like many contemporaries used, and the fact that “Understand In a Car Crash” repeats its second verse, which could make it sound a bit boring. Furthermore, the album also suffers from redundancy in terms of sound, with the exception of “Understanding In a Car Crash”, “Autobiography of a Nation” and “Paris In Flames”, every song seems to have the similar thrashing sound, which also downgrades the quality of the album.
In short, this album nevertheless is new kind of Emo classic for those who want to seek a fresher lyrics and darker sound in the genre after being tired of listening to hardcore-punk-like sound with personal lyrics, as it contains some remarkable goth-rock-like melodies and sociopolitical lyrics, yet it remains the post-hardcore sound that is still worth thrashing around for. After you do understand the style of Thursday, go ahead and try the follow-up of this album/Island Records debut, War All The Time, where the band enhance their political themes in the album with more pop hooks. However, this album alone still stands the test of time as a remarkable document of the genre itself, as it showcases the darker and uglier side of Emo itself, setting a huge difference from the joyous, sing-along punk-pop like those from
Jimmy Eat World and
Blink-182, setting the base sound of other peers that emerged later such as
My Chemical Romance and later bands.
