Baby, This Is Savage. This Exists To Kill: The Thermals' "Now We Can See"
Written: Aug 22 '09 (Updated Aug 22 '09)
Product Rating:
Pros: As powerful, undeniable, and irrational as an angry mob
Cons: Its very existence makes it absolutely impossible for me to enjoy the Little River Band.
The Bottom Line: In which the author lives in perpetual fear of the end-of-life counseling provisions subliminally encoded within the lyrics of The Thermals' latest album.
plorentz's Full Review: Now We Can See [PA] by The Thermals
On Now We Can See, the latest album by The Thermals, Oregonian indie-rockers Hutch Harris and Kathy Foster come on like an angry mob in search of a health care town hall meeting to destroy. Only instead of heckling Arlen Specter with the loudly regurgitated wit and wisdom of Glenn Beck, they heckle the whole of humanity with furiously driven, exclamation-pointed punk-pop musings on mortality. The chords are blunt and choppy. The drumming is rudimentary. The melodies are crude and favor simple five-syllable declarations – The earth was too hard! The air was too thin! I took off my clothes! I took off my skin! - which Hutch geekily yell-sings, throwing a point of emphasis on the last word of every line like a True Believer preaching the sacred importance of even his vaguest lyrical clause.
The cumulative effect is as undeniable as Sarah Palin’s panic-driven (panic-driving) denouncements of imaginary Obama Death Panels. These songs play the most tenacious kind of jujitsu with the listener. They say the darnedest things. They non-fictionalize even the most outlandish fictions. And yet, they remain utterly impervious to critical thought or fact-checking. To engage them even in disagreement is to empower them immeasurably. To suggest, rightly, that any one of these song’s choruses sounds much like any of the others is only to affirm the very catchiness of that chorus. To suggest, rightly, that Hutch’s overgrown adolescent vocals place fully three-quarters of his lyrics in bold italics is only to heighten the consequentiality of what he sings. And to, rightly, comment on the record’s general frivolousness (especially given the group's passionately political past) can only prove what a complete and total whiney-baby you are.
There may be nothing more frustrating than trying to dislike Now We Can See, but even when I had 5 other CDs to choose from already loaded into my car stereo, I kept returning to The Thermals like a dittohead returning to Rush (Limbaugh, that is). I’d get five minutes into the latest by Fastball (a really good album, by the way) and suddenly get an uncontrollable craving for the “oh-way-oh-oh-whoah-oh” chorus of the title track. I’d turn on the radio, and head for the relative comfort of my local oldies station only to find myself itching for the snotty, declarative certainty of “We Were Sick”. I’d be singing along to the greatest hits of the Little River Band – one of my favorite bands to sing along to – and when I’d get to the part of “Cool Change” where Glen Shorrock sings about the albatross and the whale being his brothers, I’d think of how Hutch Harris describes his suicidal de-evolutionary impulses in “When I Died”, how he imagines himself transformed into a fish, how he feels the sea calling to him to take a swim: “I was only past the riptide… when I died!”. And I’d think how joyful and liberating that sounds when Hutch sings it. And even though “Cool Change” is also about joy and liberation on the high seas (and doesn’t involve drowning to death), I’d flee the tranquility of the Little River Band for the dorky violence of The Thermals.
In the song “Now We Can See”, The Thermals giddily announce that “we don’t need to admit we were wrong”, and also confess, with apparent glee: “Our enemies lay dead on the ground and still we kick!” These may, in fact, be ironic political comments, but they also speak absolutely unironically to The Thermals’ own musical totalitarianism, the way their little two-or-three minute songs establish tyrannical dictatorships in their listeners’ heads. It’s little wonder that so many of these songs deal with fear and death, often conflictingly. Side A starts with a song called “When I Died.” Side B with “When We Were Alive”. On the A side, Hutch sings about confronting fear and defeating it in a song called “I Let It Go”. On the B side, in a song called “When I Was Afraid”, over a harsh, cyclical grind, he sings fear’s praises: “It kept me well. Hell, it kept me alive.” All of the record’s songs speak to each other like this. They interlock and interface with each other. They empower each other. One song heightens the meaning of another. Images of water and drowning are pervasive. The melody over which Hutch sings about how much he needed fear echoes the melody of a song about how much he needs love (“I Called Out Your Name”). Individually, none of the songs feel all that nuanced or subtle. Taken as a whole, nuances and complexities abound. As individuals, they might all sound vaguely similar, formulaic, and they might be hard to take seriously, but together, they become a musical mob of formidable power and determination.
- - - - - This album is available on vinyl, and comes with a digital download code.
- - - - - BECAUSE YOU NEED TO KNOW:
“Now We Can See” by The Thermals Kill Rock Stars Records Released 4/7/09
Produced by John Congleton 35 min.
SONGS: When I Died – We Were Sick – I Let It Go – Now We Can See – At the Bottom of the Sea – When We Were Alive – I Called Out Your Name – When I Was Afraid – Liquid In, Liquid Out – How We Fade – You Dissolve
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
![Now We Can See [PA] by The Thermals](http://img.shopping.com/cctool/PrdImg/images/pr/177X150/00/7a/11/bd/b2/2047983026.JPG)
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.