Review: Thursday – "War All The Time"

Release Date: September 16, 2003
Producer: Sal Villanueva
Record Label: Island

The quartet from New Brunswick, New Jersey have done it again. Thursday have just released their Island Records debut, War All The Time. So far their have been nothing but positive feedback from Rolling Stone reviewers to a simple fan of Thursday.

With the original make up of Geoff Rickley on vocals, Tom Keely and Steve Pedula on guitars, Tim Payne on bass and Tucker Rule supplying the drums. With newcomer Andrew Everding adding a new sound with keyboards. With the addition of keyboards, you can expect another side of Thursday.

With the post-hardcore, screamo trend still hanging around, expect another new wave of it. The onslaught of intelligent lyrics, combined with the intense sound of the guitars, bass and drums, War All The Time makes for nothing short of genius.

As the single “Signals Over the Air” has become an increasingly popular song on the radio, you can expect more and more people to get informed of Thursday. The video for “Signals Over the Air” is also getting some recognition by Mtv 2. The video concept is the band rocking out, (which I feel they should pride themselves on, because seeing Thursday perform is intense) but as the song progresses the band(mainly Geoff) is thrown underwater as they keep sinking down. The video is shot very well I feel, with dramatic lighting and up close in your face shots. The beginning of the cd, starts off fast and hard, “For the Workforce, Drowning” is bone crunching and full of angst. In this song, I feel that the economy and how its killing everyone is the focus of this song. With the chorus of “please take these hands, throw them in the river, wash away the things they never held, please take thes hands, throw me in the river, don’t let me drown before the workday ends.” My instant feeling is of hatred towards the American economy and how we will all be replaced by clones one day to leave us with nothing.

The second track, “Between Rupture and Rapture” is another intense song, starting off with simple strums of a guitar, the drums and bass come in a few seconds after and about half a minute into the song, everything comes together in a very anti-climatic way. This song I can only imagine is a true crowd pleaser and is definitely balls to walls. The third song I will give my opinion on is the title track “War All the Time”. This song reveals the softer side of Thursday. Another track with just a single instrument playing, this being the bass, but it is quickly caught up with easy playing of drums and guitars and Geoff’s vocals. This track is so perfect, so soft, so intelligent. Even if your not a fan of Thursday, I highly suggest giving this song a try.

Even though Full Collapse is an overall thrashing and more hardcore influenced record, it is probably the best cd Thursday have put out. War All The Time has definite influences from both their very independant release Waiting and Full Collapse, their Victory Records release. War All The Time is a very good combination of the slower, more melodic Waiting and the post-hardcore, in your face Full Collapse.

Right now, Thursday are on a headlining tour with Thrice and Coheed&Cambria. With the combination of new releases from each band all on tour together, I highly suggest going to see this tour if you get the chance. Not only because of new releases, but because all three bands are very good live, espically Thursday. Check out Thursday’s War All the Time and see what all the talk about is.