Since forming in a New Jersey basement a decade ago, Thursday has released five full-length albums across four record labels. Rooted deeply in punk ethics and post-hardcore melodies, the band has consistently produced a peerless version of underground rock. Their latest effort and debut on Epitaph Records, Common Existence, documents a band finally settling into a sound they’ve been searching for over the last ten years.
Common Existence begins with the album’s first single, “Resuscitation of a Dead Man”, a song that fuses the experimental approach of bands like At the Drive-in into Thursday’s signature sound. Rise Against’s Tim McIlrath provides backup vocals, injecting a punk grit that holds the song together.
Unmistakeably inspired by Bruce Springsteen, “Friends in the Armed Forces” finds the band examining the delicate situation of not supporting a war but still praying for the safety of friends and family serving overseas. Clearly distressed, Rickly laments, “If you try to speak your mind they tell you to keep it to yourself because you’ve got friends in the armed forces”. The track features guest vocals from one of the early founders of hardcore-punk, Walter Schreifels.
With syncopated drums mimicking the sound of an approaching train, “Subway Funeral” tells the story of vocalist Geoff Rickly “wait[ing] for the Seven line to take [him] where nobody goes”, itemizing major landmarks such as Grand Central Station and Shea Stadium on a trip from Manhattan to Queens. The Joy Division-inspired “Love Has Led Us Astray”, offers Rickly a chance to explore his vocal range while “Unintended Long Term Effects” provides him a chance to tell the true story of a Japanese girl who lost her family to the radiation sickness resulting from the United States’ 1945 attack on Hiroshima.
The final track, “You Were the Cancer”, blissfully coalesces every style the band hints at during the first ten tracks. Lyrically one of the most impressive efforts of the band’s career, the song explodes with vocal intensity not seen since the band’s earliest albums. The song seamlessly shifts across its six minute duration from reservedly soft to loud and brash, putting on new layers of synth as it sheds its old ones.
The album is marked by many independent themes but connected to an overlying idea that every human shares a common existence and common events throughout life. Normally introspective, Rickly looks outward on this album; exploring themes such as marriage (“Last Call”), fatherhood (“As He Climbed the Dark Mountain”), and physical abuse (“Time’s Arrow”). He draws inspiration from authors such as Cormac McCarthy, David Foster Wallace, Martin Amis, Roberto Bolano, and Denis Johnson.
On Common Existence, Thursday simply sound like a superior version of their former selves. Drummer Tucker Rule proves himself as one of the genre’s superior drummers, and late-comer keyboardist Andrew Everding has finally realized his role in the band. Bassist Tim Payne provides lush bass melodies that don’t simply sit under the band’s dual guitars. The message behind the album’s title is clear: every event in our lives that is unique to us has already been experienced by someone else, somewhere in the world. Our trials, our love, our failures are all common to huamnity. This is our common existence.
