| Thrice – Major/Minor |
| Written by Derek Harrison | |||
| Tuesday, 18 October 2011 13:25 | |||
 Whether or not they intended it, Major/Minor is Thrice's grunge album. The band's eighth effort is dominated by voice, rhythm guitars, and verse/chorus song structures. It is an angry record, but not in the dark and bombastic metal way as the band's previous efforts have been. Major/Minor also marks Thrice's return from reclusion. The album was recorded at Red Bull Studios with producer Dave Schiffman, who had worked on Vheissu in 2005, the band's last album recorded with outside help. Their three most recent albums, The Alchemy Index Vols. I & II and Beggars, were recorded at their home studio and produced by the band. Because of this, there's a certain bigger, fuller sound to Major/Minor despite its straightforwardness.
The focus of the new release is songwriting. While all the other expected ingredients are there, energy, emotion and instrumental prowess, they are a backdrop to the songs, rather than existing for their own sake. Solos are sparse and experimentation is kept to a minimum, to some degree following up on the rawness of the previous album, Beggars, but growing even more mature and down-to-earth. With Beggars, Thrice was trying to be raw and stripped-down after the sprawl of The Alchemy Index, while with Major/Minor, they are just being themselves.
The album opens with "Yellow Belly," a song which recalls the straightforward energy of their early days but is not held in check by the predictable melodic pattern they suffered with on The Illusion of Safety and The Artist In The Ambulance, leftovers from their punk beginnings. The strength of the song lies in the melody, anchored by the repeated lyric "you don't care." The melodies are strong throughout the album, but the lead single and second track "Promises" shows just how far Dustin Kensrue has come as a singer, shrugging of the overstated aggression of the opening track and singing with a soulful, honest passion.
The grunge influence has come through a little bit by now, but "Blinded" makes it indisputable. Kensrue's performance in the third track has a distinctly 90s alternative rock quality. The guitars are toned to a grungy sound (pun intended) and played for texture rather than for melody, culminating in a tremolo picked, reverb drenched post-chorus swell. There's also an organ in there somewhere... but you don't notice it until the very end of the song when the rest of the instruments fade out.
I can't decide if "Cataracts" is more grunge than the previous or if they're on equal footing. Certainly the very first notes of the song harken back to twenty years ago, and it comes complete with fuzz bass and a shining major-key chorus with the illustrative lyrics: "Can't see the light of day!" sung in Kensrue's best impersonation of Pearl Jam. Okay, "Cataracts" wins. It's the most grunge song on the album.
"Call It In The Air" is a mesh of the 90s qualities of the last two songs and the early Thrice sound. The verse is built on a one-chord groove which lends an emotional weight to the gentle melody of the chorus, while both those qualities make the heavy, passionate bridge bleed with emotion. It's a little over the top, and reminds the listener why Thrice used to be called an emo-core band. For "Treading Paper" they once again evoke the spirit of Pearl Jam. A strong groove played sparsely through the verse and operatically through the chorus work in the song's favour for the first half, unifying the momentum, but when the rhythm changes for the third verse the song gets into a rut and stretches too long, suffering from the same over the top emotion as the previous track.
"Blur" picks up the pace again, named as it is after another 90s alternative rock band. The rhythm here is more early Thrice than anywhere else on the album, but with a playful take on the time signature and a quiet middle section featuring a well-executed ambient guitar solo. "Words In The Water" feels like a centrepiece, and not just because it's the longest cut at 6:16. It opens with a sparse guitar, shuffling snare and reverb-drenched vocals. The song hugs the same emotional line of good taste as the two earlier over-the-top tracks, but never crosses the line. Thrice manages to paint an evocative picture that still sounds sincere, thanks to careful use of dynamics and environment and a restrained performance by Kensrue.
The main failing of "Words In The Water" is that it feels like an ending, and the next track "Listen Through Me" doesn't come naturally. You can tell the band knew this, since they left the fade-out running for nearly 30 seconds. The song is played to a straight slow metal beat and still retains the 90s tonality, but contains one of the weakest melodies on the album and no memorable hook whatsoever. "Anthology" is more U2 than grunge, but in a good way. Featuring a spattering of major-key metal riffs and a wide climactic sound, it's a bright spot after the bleeding heart tracks of the middle third of the album.
The closing track, "Disarmed," prominently features an organ which continually shifts very slightly out of tune, which is off-putting at first but lends a subtle and welcome eeriness to the song once you get used to it. Still, the album is unfortunately weighted toward the front half, the first four tracks also being the four best songs on Major/Minor. The record ends with the other instruments cutting out, leaving only the beat and the unbalanced and wavering organ to do the talking.
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