Defend the Indefensible: Thursday

Fuck the title of this thread (since Thursday is the total opposite of Indefensible). And also, I just heard Common Existence - the new album - tonight, and it's AMAZING.

Disorienting to me to see Thursday and Rites of Spring happening next to each other in the same paragraph.

I won't go as far as "AMAZING", but the new album isn't half-bad if you are into this sort of thing.

I did a cool interview with Rickly for the Voice recently.

I'll try and check this out. I was thinking about doing a S/D Screamo thread, but all I could think of was these guys and Thrice.

TTtttttthhhhhhhhhhhh....

I could do a Screamo thread. But I tend to collapse those guys in with bands like Jimmy Eat World. I'm not sure Clarity is a substantially different genre then, say, War All the Time. Or Brand New.

why indefensible? i think they're one of the most listenable modern emo/post-hardcore/whatever bands. i listened to war all the time religiously!

Yeah. War All the Time and IMHO City By the Light Divided are totally classic. "Sugar in Sacrament" is an A+ song.

New album is pretty good departure for these guys, most of the screamo is gone and replaced by a more atmospheric approach and even some hints of shoegaze. Kind of think that those few people that really loved the last Linkin Park record might be into this.

Disorienting to me to see Thursday and Rites of Spring happening next to each other in the same paragraph.

― bookbookgoose, domingo 18 de enero de 2009 1:29 (2 years ago)

i don't ever mention i was into post-hardcore to strangers because for whatever reason the subject would've come up it's cool that i'm suddenly thinking about alone, magic bullet, robotic empire or level plane records again and then someone has to go and be all "thursday's really good". inevitably.

- but i'd never heard them compared to earlier bands like rites of spring or moss icon (!?) until now

Yeah, that comparison really doesn't make much sense to me.

a "best album of the last five years": no devolución

imo the best thursday song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8a96DKGtQiE

i search things a lot. i found this on hipinion, and i more or less agree with it. i'm glad rickly/thursday is finally getting wide respect, now (i'm glad pitchfork considers it cool now, too). thursday were always different, but i guess it took a lot of hindsight/10 years, for us to figure that out. i wanna talk about it and the proceeding quote, after.

re: thursday

'waiting' is so great. i didn't always think so though, not until i read some rickly interviews in which he explained that they were going for a kind of screamo/goth* thing at that time. after that, it began to make more sense to me. i used to think that "this side of brightness", in particular, was just too hammy and overblown. but, now that i approach that song from a semi-gothic perspective, it actually makes a lot of sense and i now think it's really, really great. the swirly violins during the choruses are in-line with darkwave of any era. 'waiting' is just a really solid album, even if some of the lyrics/vocals are a little too much - that was just the nature of screamo at that time, though

'full collapse' is still my favorite, but i don't exactly respect it. i mean, i love the way it sounds and everything, but there's a very clear metallic hardcore influence on it (rickly and co. used to talk about being big strife fans), which, even though i like it, it's just hard for me to accept that that's the foundation on which they built that album. never mind the fact it came out on victory or thursday's scene/touring associations (which are both valid reasons to write the band off entirely, and i respect that i could probably never change anyone's mind here about them - but i'm personally willing to forgive thursday for those things, and i really love them and take them seriously). 'full collapse' is also an undeniably forceful post-hardcore album, whether you'd like to admit it or not (which no one should be afraid to do as the nature of post hardcore is designed for change/progression/regression/going sideways/etc.). the album still sounds remarkably fresh to me

the screaming at the end of "cross out the eyes" is pretty horrible though, lol

from 'war all the time' onward, i really don't have much to say. my sense is just that, by that time, everything had just finally 'clicked' for rickly and co., they'd finally gotten around to hearing all the 'right' records and working from those, and they just began to earnestly do their own thing, really.

i think of 'waiting' as a semi-accidentally good and very interesting album,
'full collapse' as something more transitional, which featured their highest highs and lowest lows, although i still feel it is, all at once, an undeniably important post-hardcore/nu-emo/nu-screamo album (which i mean in a good way),
and 'war all the time' is when rickly really got started, as described above - i'm also willing to call thursday a classic screamo/skramz band from that album forward

again; the smiths : post-punk :: thursday : emo/screamo
other post-punk bands weren't supposed to try to sound like the smiths, just as other emo/screamo bands weren't supposed to try to sound like thursday - so don't blame thursday for so much of what came in their wake, especially when the band really started to grow up with 'war' and thereafter continued to

::i don't want to feel this way forever::, lol

*i really wish more bands had been successful at the screamo/goth thing, by the way. the only mainstream band that was was mcr, but they crossed it with straight up pop/rock and metal-lite, and also a lot of humor - which ruled, they were hilarious and awesome. as far as i know though, there weren't any serious screamo bands in 1999 or whenever actually purposely injecting a bit of goth into the mix, or at least to any good effect. i guess some of the greats were accidentally gothy in an aggressively romantic sense (e.g. saetia, pg. 99, even older stuff like heroin), but the possible hybrid was never really realized by anyone that could actually do it justice (except for that first thursday mini-album). any suggestions for that kind of thing??

again, no devolución is a remarkable record

love thursday so much. recently i've been listening to deja entendu which conjures up a similar time + place for me. i think war all the time (and city by the light) especially because it was nj + v religious resonated w me (+ of course angsty). i feel like the lyrics for both still hold up v well too. obv more impressionistic re affect than precisely lyrical but booming to sing along w/ in the car w speakers very loud; still can give me a cathartic jolt after a tough day. i also still like bleed american + places you have come to fear the most which are not really as good as the other two in consistently but still have wonderful moments of painful self-revelation. in some ways i feel like the kind of critical reputation of these albums should be an indication that what i'm responding to is the emotional relationship i built with them at a particularly vulnerable time of life - like how you'll always love the albums of your youth. but otoh they have such beautiful, transcendent places w/ the kind of intimacy i never got from eg fall out boy (who are catchy as hell).

Mordy: This is actually why I like you! You've posted nice things about Thursday before. :D

I'm so glad that everyone's finally catching on to Thursday, now! And, that Rickly and co. have begun to reach a wider audience! Man, Geoff and his bands fucking deserve it.

However, I must respect the fact that it would, unfortunately, take about ten years of hindsight, before people figured out that they were nothing like Taking Back Sunday, et al.

Anyway, Pitchfork has, more or less, apologized for that fucked up 'Full Collapse' review, by giving Rickly and co. good press, in the last year or two.

sometimes brad bumps the emo thread w/ recent bands doing interesting things but nothing really is near as good as the best screamo albums of like 2001-2003 i wonder if that moment is just lost to time

again, no devolución is a remarkable record

I lump it in w/ Young Machetes as a slept-on epic final screamo opus, surely there's another

i think you meant skramz there, mordy! as far as earlier than 2003 is concerned!

we don't have a skramz thread, to my knowledge.

it's for another thread, but, city of caterpillar, orchid, jeromes dream, even reversal of man! etc. deserve more discussion!

we have some other thread called "gothed out hardcore" i think. it covers the older stuff (the hated, moss icon, etc. even later stuff like heroin and shotmaker). it'd be nice to talk more about post-2000 great real-f-ing-screamo bands, though. because, there isn't many of them, except for the one's giving it a throwback. (pianos become the teeth - are wonderful)

Bleurgh. Dammnit! All I can do is repeat the quoted sentiment above:
Thursday : emo :: Smiths : post-punk.
No one was supposed to try to sound like The Smiths, just as no one was supposed to try to sound like Thursday.

sometimes brad bumps the emo thread w/ recent bands doing interesting things but nothing really is near as good as the best screamo albums of like 2001-2003 i wonder if that moment is just lost to time

nothing really approaches it this year but last year's hotelier record is a modern classic imo

i mean it's not 100 percent screamo but what is these days

So, like three ilm-ers like Thursday.

Others: just take a look at Thursday in hindsight. They were original and fabulous at the time, and especially are now. It's unfair to judge them by/compare them to what they influenced.

Rickly is hilarious. He basically hates all of his peers. And, he kind of "gets it". Bleurghhh. I'll go into it at some point later. At least he has Pitchfork approval now (I'm not being ironic - I am extremely happy that Thursday and Rickly are finally finding the wider audiences and critical acclaim that they/he always deserved).

pitchfork didn't review the no devotion record (iirc) so it's hard to say he has "pitchfork approval," but i think several of the current contributors have some kind of history with thursday, they were a really crucial band for a lot of people

btw EVERYONE in this thread should check out the no devotion record, it's the next logical step after no devolucion

oh, i just meant that they gave United Nations a 'best new track', talked about Thursday/Rickly here or there (in supportive, encouraging ways), and gave the re-issue of the first Thursday album a very, very kind review (it only got 6.9 or something, but reads more like an 8.1 or something).

ummm. no problem with pitchfork, but i've not read it regularly for 10 years now, by the way. i really should read it more. i like nabisco and mr. raggett a whole damn plenty.

oh yeah i forgot about all of that. united nations code as cool in a way thursday doesn't though. waiting is definitely a v raw record

you're wrong! now that united nations are cool, so is thursday, by extension!

but, it just takes threads like this, on ilm and elsewhere, and a few decent acknowledgments by p-fork, stylus, etc. before we can make the indie masses consider them canon.

i mean i wish but emo still feels very separate from everything else. i'll take it back when an emo record gets a bnm (i almost thought the world is would do it this year)

i consider thursday, from war all the time forward, just as i consider skramz bands!

from that album forward, they're in the league of orchid, jeromes dream, city of caterpillar, funeral diner, and so forth, as far as i'm concerned! they grew up with 'war', but were prettier than other bands, i guess. but, i guess their prettiness makes it hard to take them seriously, for most.

thursday rules. what is a skramz band?

I though it was a stupid term that retroactively applies to older screamo before it became a "scene" thing but don't quote me on that. I don't have much use for Thursday any more but they were a good band back in th'day

yep. awful term

nope. "skramz" is a hilarious and useful term. i've got no problem using it (kinda) seriously, and i'd expect anyone near an emo thread on ilm to already know it. i've got 0 problems with it.
cheers!