" God reached his hand, down from the sky, he flooded the land then he set it on fire!He said FEAR ME AGAIN, Know I'm your father, remember that no-one can breathe underwater!"By that time I already had the shivers.Those lines kickstart Here's Your Future, the first track on The Body, The Blood, The Machine, the third dynamic album by The Thermals .Here's Your Future is an amazing song to open an album. It has amazing guitar bits that just beg to be blasted at disrespectful volumes on a friend's father's expensive speakers. The lyrics are amazing, angry, ironic and yet somehow beautiful comments on Christian religion. That's generally the theme throughout the album.The next track, I Might Need You To Kill is slightly less upbeat. Hutch's vocals and the lyrics add an amazing edge to a tune that could possibly have become any indie-rock song, but instead tun into something of a comment on human nature and suppression, still using semi-sarcastic. references to the Christian bible.The drums then fade into an opening for An Ear For Baby, an equally amazing tune with a similar message. " Good luck getting God on the phone, good luck getting even a tone! Good luck getting over the fence, good luck putting even a dent, in the mission, THE Dream, THE BODY, THE BLOOD, THE MACHINE!" The guitar solo about halfway is extremely loveable.Once again, the song fades out, and in comes, BOOM..... A Pillar Of Salt, the alter-ego to the song about to follow, with almost the exact same chords arranged differently.All about sin and no shame. " We we're born to sin, we don't think we're special sir, we know everybody is!". Hutch's vocals might be known as shout-ish but somehow they maintain a beautiful almost harmony. This is very apparent in A Pillar Of Salt, where his singing is very subtly emotional.And in comes the Alter-Ego to A Pillar Of Salt, Returning To The Fold. The guitar is super similar to emphasize this, except its much slower, and this time the theme is regretting sins and forgiveness. The guitar just after the second "verse" is amazingly saturated and, well, awesome.The guitar once again leads out of the song.Test Pattern comes next, my favorite song on the album. A perfect song. Started with comforting drums and melancholy beautiful bass and guitar, all coming together, and then the most melodic you'll ever hear Hutch sing an amazing metaphor for a love song about no commitment. " So you can call this a test pattern, so you don't have to commit, so you can change any day", says the chorus. For some reason this almost reduces me to tears. The bass in the intro to the next verse is amazing. Hutch goes on to sing another heartfelt verse and the chorus once again before a bass and guitar session ending off the song.St.Rosa and The Swallows starts with a much angrier and more comfortably " The Thermals " guitar bit.More amazing lyrics from Hutch Harris and amazing drumming and bass by miss Kathy Foster.I'm running out of good adjectives here! The chorus and verse finish and Hutch starts an amazing extro, which eventually ends the song off into , "I will hold you tight, through the cold days and the frozen nights...... When its COLD! COLD! COLD!" , before it fades out into a stunning hum of guitar and bass."Two By Two, LORD We'll Take em! Two by two, we'll lead them to the bedroom floor, we'll eat em in the cold of morning!" I can't say much for this song that I haven't already said. Religious sarcasm? Tick! Beautiful vocals from Hutch? Tick! Amazing instrumentals from Kathy? Tick! Amazing Lyrics? Tick! This album is so amazing and consistent that I can't help using the same words over and over.Power Doesn't Run On Nothing. The 9th track. " We're MORE EQUAL, We'll move your people! off the planet! Cos Goddamnit we need the fuel!". The angriest track on the album, and the second last.I Hold The Sound. The last track on an absolute lekker ride of an album! And you can tell it's the last track. " The light out, we don't talk, we sleep now. Its safe now, the world is over"The only bad thing I can possibly say about The Body, The Blood, The Machine, is that it's too short, and that not every CD around is like to, because its so damn awesome and I want more.I'm keeping my eye on Hutch, Kathy and new drummer Westin, and I'm excited to buy Now We Can See and whatever comes next or came before.Great album. It has a lot of religious undertones but is otherwise pretty good if you like punk rock style music. I heard a track on the show Weeds and bought the album. I was not dis appointed?Because I only bought this album for A Pillar of Salt, and the nostalgia from guitar practice, I thought that song was amazing but every other song sounded the same with Hutch screaming into the mic.Then I started listening to A Pillar of Salt and Returning to the Fold in my main playlist.Then I started listening to the album from Here's your Future to Returning to the Fold.Now I listen to the entire album on my way into work, fantastic album.There are many reviews posted already that describe why this is such a great record...so I won't go into too much detail. Yes, the lyrics are a little heavy-handed, but the band manages to touch on a lot of weighty issues in a pretty small space. The music builds a sense of tension which, with the lyrical content, produces a feeling of barely controlled fury.The only warning I would have is that some might be turned off by the tone of the singers voice. I think it's perfect for the record however. He has a vocal delivery and tone that sounds both snotty and wise...and how often do you get to use those two words together to describe something?A stunning album and a real surprise. The first two Thermals albums - especially "More Parts Per Million" - were both great, but the maturity of the songwriting on this album goes way beyond anything they had done before. These are still intense, driving rock songs, but the lyrics are much sharper and the playing tighter and more diverse than it was on their other records. This really shows the Thermals to be one of the best rock bands out there right now in any genre.I stopped listening to Punk Rock years ago. I still like it, but as you can imagine I've fallen behind when it comes to what the new great punk bands are. The Thermals though aren't just a great punk band, they are a great band that grow beyond their genre. This album is brilliant on so many different levels. It's loud and agressive, but catchy and smart. I'm not just saying that this album is one of the best of the decade because it's one of the best that I've heard, but it made the "Best Of The Decade" lists on tons of different music magazines and websites.I love this album. Super catchy songs and great lyrics. I highly recommend getting this, particularly if you are someone who comes from a religious background but finds religion, organized or otherwise, to be a little too limiting as a basis for a worldview.One of those albums where three chords, uniquely satisfying and thirst-quenching lyrics, grow old by the middle of the album. Buy it used for a few American bucks and you got yourself a handful of rousing and catchy lo-fi tracks to pepper your latest mix tape/album/podcast audio thingy.The Thermals are one of the best bands around currently. For sure there's a punk-pop, grunge influence but the songs are extremely well crafted and, even, dare I say it, catchy. I can also say that there's not a bad track on any of the CDs they've done so far. I only found out about them recently but their CDs have not been off my playlist since I received them.The Thermals are somewhere between Poppunk and Indierock. They have a feeling for good melodies and they are rough enough and strange enough for me to find interresting. This is one of their finest moments.Brilliant album and now I have it on vinyl at a reasonable price.Nice Cover art, good quality inner sleeve and lyric insert, comes with digital download. 140 gramVoici un sacré bon disque. Si vous ne me croyez pas vous n'avez qu'à l'écouter. C'est une nouvelle preuve que la simplicité est un chouette terreau pour que s'épanouissent l'inventivité et l'originalité. Aujourd'hui encore des chansons punk rock de 3 minutes sur 4 accords peuvent s'avérer fraiches et excitantes. Rock'n'roll will never die.Sur l'échelle des Thermals, ce disque est une super production, mais en réalité il donne juste l'impression pour une fois d'avoir été enregistré dans un vrai studio et pas dans une boite à chaussures. Ce chétifisme fétichiste du son expliquait d'ailleurs une partie du charme du groupe, pour l'autre c'est la voix inclassable du chanteur qui s'en chargeait. La voix est toujours là, mais habille des chansons plus classiques, si l'on veut. C'est un disque politique qui décrit une société totalitaire, qui est peut-être déjà par certains aspects la notre, où le pouvoir se nourrit de sang, qui est facile à obtenir, où il est beaucoup question de l'emprise culpabilisatrice de la religion et de trucs effrayants de ce genre. Paranoïa ou non, c'est surtout la musique qui est excellente. C'est rempli d'une conviction communicative qui incite à mettre le volume très fort et à serrer les poings et les dents et à marcher, ou conduire ainsi, l'air décidé et le cerveau en ébullition. C'est rock'n'roll bon sang. C'est électrique et électrisant. Ca ne dure pas trop longtemps. The Body The Blood The Machine.Comme beaucoup de grands disques des années 2000, c'est sorti chez SubPop, label qui a décidément un certain flair pour dénicher les nouveaux talents mais aussi pour attirer à lui les fleurons de l'indie rock américain.Voici un sacré bon disque. Croyez moi ou pas, moi je retourne l'écouter.