Album Rating: 3.0

only other time i saw them was at disrupt last summer with circa and the used and the stuff they played off of palms (only us, just breathe) translated pretty well. those were like the only studio songs i really dug tho so didnt do much to change my opinion on the album overall. theyre a great live band tho they sound fucking huge

Album Rating: 4.0

This might be Thrice's album that is easiest to just throw on. Doesn't require me to be in such a specific mood like their others do.

Album Rating: 2.5

You say "safe alt rock" as if the alchemy index is some crazy avant garde project but a lot of what's on there is safe alt rock mixed with some ambient

Album Rating: 3.5 | Sound Off

Disagree with so much here. Black Honey is easily one of my least favorites on the album from a musical standpoint. And there is no way in hell this is worse than Palms (unless you weren't including Palms when you said this was their worst since Identity Crisis).

Hurricane is an all-time classic, The Window rules both lyrically and musically, The Long Defeat is beautiful, Death From Above is a bit ham-fisted but *really* effective, and Salt and Shadow is a gorgeous closer. It's a very safe, inoffensive album but it's got some gems on it for sure and is otherwise pretty solid.

Album Rating: 3.5

Yeah Hurricane and Salt and Shadow are two of their best songs. Great way to open and close the album.

Album Rating: 2.5

salt and shadow is easily the best thing here. it's like a better silver wings

Album Rating: 4.0

I revisited this recently thinking I may have overrated it, but I still think it's a lot better than some people give it credit for. The Window, Long Defeat, and Death From Above are all classics.



Agreed though that the lyrics are mostly disappointingly simple

Album Rating: 2.5

this is their best since vhiessu imo

Album Rating: 2.5

i need to revisit beggars at some point but beggars bored me both times i heard it closer to its release

Album Rating: 3.5

Can't agree more, incredibly boring album.

Album Rating: 3.5

I enjoy a lot of these songs for what they are. Pretty catchy alt rock. Don’t love the guitar tones.



They played Black Honey towards the end of the Vheissu reunion setlist and it didn’t hold up to that previous material in terms of live energy

Album Rating: 2.5 | Sound Off

Wake Up is a biblically awful assault on anything good



Album is p bad in general, Hurricane is crazy good tho

Album Rating: 4.0

Wake up and stay with me are definitely the low points. Should have replaced one of them with sea change

Album Rating: 4.0

Black honey is soooo lame ahhhhh

Album Rating: 3.0

"in fact i think if you are going to criticize the political lyrics you'd have to reach a bit harder than just pointing out that they are political. a lot of bands do try to be "political" but never really address specific issues the way that dustin does here. like i said, it can be clunky and obvious at times, but he does his research and tries to hit at something deeper than your typical "political alt-rock band"

I'm just not a fan of the way he approaches singing about politics. Not all the writing is bad, but most of it is really surface level and sounds like it could have been fathomed by a first year political science major. To me a lot of it is just "racism is bad" and "drones are unethical" (I've actually heard far too many songs about drones, from Muse to Roger Waters) type of sentiments and my reaction to that is a knowing, agreeing shrug. I tried to convey that in the second paragraph, but probably didn't flesh it out enough considering I'm negatively criticizing a beloved record, so your point is definitely well met. I do think Kensrue/Thrice also needs to dig deeper also, though. Compare this to Beggars and it's embarrassing. Are the lyrics here better than the average butt rock band? Maybe, but it saddens me that I don't know offhand.



"You say "safe alt rock" as if the alchemy index is some crazy avant garde project but a lot of what's on there is safe alt rock mixed with some ambient"

You're not totally wrong, because alchemy index isn't some crazy avant-garde project, but it definitely experiments beyond mixing alt-rock with some ambient. They tweak guitar tones, production, and add different instruments depending on the element. I wasn't expecting another experimental piece honestly given that both Beggars and Major/Minor hinted at a slide back to normalcy, but to me the lyrics and sound structures are not good enough to hold this up as anything above an average rock record. Agree with you about Salt and Shadow though, and the Silver Wings comparison is on-point.



To address the conversation more generally, I actually think Palms is a better album than this because takes some chances. The peaks on that album ('Blood on Blood', 'The Dark', 'Just Breathe', 'A Branch in the River', 'The Grey') are all at least as good as the best songs here which, in my humblest of opinions, are much fewer ('Black Honey', 'Salt and Shadow'). The bad songs are god awful (especially 'Hold Up a Light'), but that's a willing trade-off instead of prolonged mediocrity. Of course, if you don't think the tracks I quoted above are excellent, then yeah, I could see why this would be preferable.

Album Rating: 3.5

Yeah wake up and stay with me are both unlistenable

Album Rating: 4.0

"They played Black Honey towards the end of the Vheissu reunion setlist and it didn’t hold up to that previous material in terms of live energy"



what? that was killer live the main riff was sooo tasty and the lightshow in general was incredible

Album Rating: 3.5

idk sowing, how many bands write lyrics that couldn’t have been written by a random college student? I definitely don’t like Dustin’s recent very direct approach but for the most part it’s a style problem for me as opposed to a quality problem

Album Rating: 3.5

@Cormano I think they played it after Firebreather and it was weak as hell after that

Album Rating: 3.0

It's possible my expectations are just too high for Thrice lyrically due to the context of their greater discography. I'm just a huge lyrics guy and when I go in expecting excellence I feel gypped when they come around trumpeting very obvious messages about racism, corruption, and "the machine." It's all just very talking-point-y and less metaphorical than I'd like to see. It'd be like if mewithoutYou got political and started writing stuff like "We panic at the sight of different colored skin...I'm not afraid to take a stand, to make it right — this has to end!" I'd probably be blown away by the directness at first, but then I'd be devastated at the lack of effort put in compared to what I know they're capable of.