Fuckin A

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Fuckin A album cover
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EDITOR'S PICK

Total Tracks: 12   Total Length: 28:25

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Douglas Wolk

eMusic Contributor

Douglas Wolk writes about pop music and comic books for Time, the New York Times, Rolling Stone, Wired and elsewhere. He's the author of Reading Comics: How Gra...more »

03.15.10
Every sweaty, breathless two-minute song's conclusion sets off another one almost like it
Label: Sub Pop Records

Anyone who thinks four-chord punk rock is played out is directed to this 2004 cluster-bomb of an album, on which Portland, Oregon's finest demonstrate that punk can be very simple, very angry, very smart, and incredibly fresh. The Thermals' songs often sound like they're streamlined versions of something much more complicated, played with their fuzzboxes and tempos cranked up all the way. Singer/guitarist Hutch Harris's rat-a-tat four- and five-syllable lines build from the sounds of words as much as their meanings ("End to Begin" opens with "Water food and drive/ We're great/ The sun sets later"). But they also speak on behalf of a generational cross-section aflame with political and cultural indignation, and clinging to sex as an arena where they actually do have power: Most of these songs are written in the first-person plural. Every riff explodes into a bigger one; every sweaty, breathless two-minute song's conclusion sets off another one almost like it.

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Vital

happiergoat

The formal elements are obvious. The hooks are there. The voice grated on me at first as attention-grabbing. But this is full-bodied, very intentional and intelligent pop punk rock.

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This sh*t just rocks

alexashton

Loud, in your face, catchy and meaningful punk rock, plain and simple.

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Sub Pop was a 'zine before it was a label, and its area of coverage was implied in its original name: "Subterranean Pop." Launched in the late '80s by Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman, the label at first specialized in the loud, hairy, messy music that underground rock bands in the Pacific Northwest were making in those days. When that sound broke into the pop mainstream a few years later, Sub Pop broadened its mission. For… more »

They Say All Music Guide

With a title that’s as much a call to arms as a call to rock out, the Thermals’ Fuckin A offers a darker, more developed version of the passionate, in-the-red indie rock of their debut, More Parts Per Million. The most immediately noticeable difference between the two albums is the sound quality: instead of recording most of the songs to a cassette player in Hutch Harris’ kitchen, as the band did with their first album, this time the Thermals spent four days in a more traditional studio with friend/producer/Death Cab for Cutie guitarist/organist Chris Walla. The result is an album that sounds cleaner but still keeps most of the band’s ramshackle energy. However, the Thermals have different reasons to sound urgent on Fuckin A than they did on More Parts Per Million; though that album’s “No Culture Icons” tackled the politics of the indie scene, much of Fuckin A is just straight-up political, a response to the war in Iraq and other events in America and in the world that transpired after their debut was released. The switch to a moderately cleaner sound for this album pays off well in this regard, if only because it’s easier to hear Harris’ smart, talky lyrics with a few layers of static stripped from them. On songs like “End to Begin,” “When You’re Thrown,” and “God and Country” — on which he sneers, “Pray for a new state, pray for assassination” — Harris balances the power of protest chants with the same intricate wordplay and internal rhymes that made it worth dividing his lyrics from More Parts Per Million’s wash of noise. Even the songs that aren’t overtly political still have political leanings: on “A Stare Like Yours,” described by Harris as an “aggressive love song,” he sings, “When you don’t have control, you have to pretend.” Likewise, “Forward” and “Remember Today” have a bouncy idealism that stands in sharp contrast to Fuckin A’s more charged moments. “Keep Time,” one of the best songs the Thermals have yet written, is both upbeat and political, an anthem about trying to keep some hope even in challenging times. Owing to its themes, Fuckin A is a shade or two less exuberant than More Parts Per Million, but it’s no less passionate or energetic, and it proves the Thermals can introduce new sounds and ideas into their music without losing what made them worth listening to in the first place. – Heather Phares

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