5 out of 5

Label: Victory

Producer: Thumb

I get it, I’m one of like ten people championing this band.  I was never huge into the yelly grunge/rap scene that developed post-Nirvana, with Linkin Park ruling the day, but some bands stuck their heads out of that mash with good song chops (generally paired with a producer capable of rendering the noise rockin’ instead of the radio friendly Gggarth kinda stuff that floated around).  Still, Thumb, being German and not really having any singles (to my knowledge), wouldn’t have popped onto my radar if I hadn’t heard one of their songs on a hardcore compilation a friend loaned me.  Thumb was actually the only band I liked from that comp, much to friend’s chagrin, as he considered them the only toss-off out of the mix.  OH WELL, FRIEND.  And I can’t truly be the only one digging on this stuff, ’cause Victory Records liked ’em enough to put out two albums, 3 being their second and, to me, something of a mini-masterpiece of the rap rock scene, reaching, as it does, for inflections of other rock genres and – as was the case on the previous album as well – stretching the lyrical content a bit further than just “I hate life”.

There are just some tracks on 3 I never would expect, based on the fairly generic thump of the majority of songs.  I say generic, but for every dumb hook or screamy part in every other song from this era you’d hear, Thumb sings through most of it, and actually bridges sections of songs together instead of just pummeling toward that one catchy section they wrote.  Even the scritchy-scratching in the background seems to serve a slightly different purpose than giving someone an excuse to “rhyme”, in that you’ll notice it layered on top of heavier moments as another aspect of the noise.

The production is also badass, grainy and clear at the same time.