The Thermals
Now We Can See
(Kill Rock Stars)

The weirdest thing about the Thermals' new album, their fourth (and first for Kill Rock Stars rather than Sub Pop), is how much it dwells in the past tense. The album starts with a song called "When I Died"; it's followed by "We Were Sick," "When We Were Alive," and "When I Was Afraid"; the first verb out of singer Hutch Harris's mouth is "was." Indeed, the album's lyrics seem, loosely, to look posthumously back on the scorched earth of their last album, the rousing mini-epic The Body, the Blood, the Machine. The unfortunate thing is that this vantage point sucks out some of that old fierce urgency—all the action has already happened, so what now is left?

The Thermals' punk pop has grown gradually more relaxed and less raucous over the years, and this album feels less animated than ever—not dead, but not really kicking as hard, either. Harris can still wail and bang out some power chords, bassist Kathy Foster and new drummer Westin Glass keep the rhythms steadily rolling, but nothing here quite approaches the explosive energy and up-tempos of their previous albums. (That this might be exactly what the band is going for conceptually doesn't make it more thrilling to listen to.)

Still, it's not the end of the world. The elastic, oddly ecstatic refrains of "When I Died" ("When I diiieeeeeeed") and shining guitar lines are stirring enough. "We Were Sick" is as musically bright and poppy as it is lyrically gloomy. The title track's easygoing, wordless chorus is unshakably catchy, even if the cadence and chords of the verse sound slightly warmed-over. Appropriately, "When We Were Alive" comes closest to the Thermals' old, dangerously high heart rates. And, hell, the Thermals on mellow still beats most bands set to full blast.