2/5
The Thermals are the most punk-ass kids you’ll ever meet. Or at least they think they are. These shamelessly self-promoting Pitchfork darlings (sanctimoniously 8.5 out of 10) piss-marked their territory with The Body, The Blood, The Machine, a politicized ‘post-pop-punk classic’ (in their own words) about a couple migrating to evangelical America. But the trio’s latest post-whatever foray, Now We Can See, is more mediocre than manifesto, its sunny turns cross-hatched with what they insist is ‘neo-grunge attitude.’
You’ve got to wonder if maybe it’s all a joke. Their overtly flashy, too-indie-for-you Web site bio, the Pitchfork interview in which lead singer/guitarist Hutch Harris calls himself a ‘recovering Catholic,’ the extended odes to drowning ‘mdash; it all reeks of attention-whoring. But with tracks whizzing by at three minutes or less, it’s hard to concentrate long enough to care.
Lukewarm ‘We Were Sick’ takes the same three-chord progressions and pounds them to lifelessness, as Harris attempts an impassioned Nirvana: ‘Never a cure/ Never a care/ Never a need.’ But atop a head-bopping, all-together-now chorus, it ends up more family patio than squawling basement. Their every-teen aura pervades ‘Now We Can See,’ a weaksauce social commentary buzzing with liberal guilt. ‘Yeah baby we were nothing/ We existed for less!/ Our present was empty/ Our history a mess!’ Harris shouts in emo strain. Ten seconds of guitar solo later, he’s still foreseeing nothing but blame.
But really, what else would you expect? Sans lyrics and with the volume down, the Portland punks’ 11 blendable tracks thankfully register as background noise, sappy like the Strokes but without that sweet drawl ‘mdash; or much else ‘mdash; to distinguish them.