In the same way that Green Day will never write another Dookie and we’ll never have another Tell All Your Friends from the TBS camp, Thursday will never write another Full Collapse. These were albums that helped carve their respective genres, ones that will always be known as their best work, and everything else will pale in comparison by a great margin. Still, while Common Existence may never be as great as Full Collapse, it comes pretty damn close.
From the opening yell of ‘Ambulance! Let me in!’ on Resuscitation of a Dead Man it’s clear that Thursday are taking no half measures this time around. Everything is turned up full throttle, everything is as hectic as it possibly can be. With Common Existence, Thursday are back doing what they do best, and have created what could be the soundtrack to a collapsing civilisation.
While Thursday have never been the most been happy-go-lucky, uplifting sort of band, everything’s just that little bit darker this time around. Geoff Rickly spits his lyrics with extra venom in the likes of Friends in the Armed Forces and You Were the Cancer, at times sounding as if he is genuinely about to kill his subject matter. Brilliant stuff.
While in the past Thursday albums have been known to be inconsistent in their quality, Common Existence doesn’t fall foul of that error. It’s as exciting at track eleven as it is at track 1 and genuinely enjoyable throughout. No, it’s not a career-defining album, but it’s still a solid effort from a genre-defining band, who are seemingly bringing back their A-game.
Andy R