4 out of 5

Label: Sub Pop

Producer: Brendan Canty

I’ll credit Canty with helping the band move past the “hit record and go” mentality that made their previous albums blasts of energy that nonetheless petered out and began to sound the same a few songs in.  ‘Body’ has so much more impressive range in the songwriting that it makes the highs really feckin’ high and the moments where the group is forced to slow down become notable juxtapositions, and perhaps the best moments on the album.  Right from the opener of ‘Here’s Your Future,’ which does a chord progression build that’s new too The Thermals, it’s apparent that things have been whipped into shape.  The hits indeed keep coming for several tracks in, though it’s hard to shake up a guitar-bass-drums punky trio too much without resorting to extra tricks, and as our lead singer really only has one range – emotey almost-shouting – and one lyrical topic for this album – religion and control – your ears will still start to get used to things midway through.  But what’s this miracle?  A slow song!  ‘Test Pattern’ is perhaps one of the most effective tracks the group has ever written.  It steps outside of the thematic limitations for a moment to just be a song about relationships, but the sudden quiet and great guitar / drum hook make it feel heartfelt.  When things explode into ‘Back to the Sea’ a couple tracks later, it’s the opposite – pushed to a level of aggression that all the distorted ‘Fuckin A’ stuff couldn’t amount to.  And the song also summarizes all of the disc’s concepts more concisely and effectively than any given track, making it the only chorus I really want to shout on the rooftops.

It’s an incredibly ear-catching album to put on, and whenever we played it in the ol’ record shoppe, it was a guaranteed sell.  The Thermals, for better or worse, can’t get too far out of the box of their format, but this album introduced some elements of variation that they would begin to carry over to further recordings…. though ‘The Body, The Blood, The Machine’ remains the most solid and through and through enjoyable.