The Thermals at the Annex
The Thermals have released two albums since 2006’s masterful The Body, The Blood, The Machine, but the band’s vigorous set on Saturday at the Annex was chock full of tightly wound cuts from that album. Starting with set-opener “St. Rosa And The Swallows” and including at least half of the rest of the album, the tracks from The Body drew the biggest response from the crowd and incited the most enthusiastic of only a few mosh pits.
But The Thermals were in town touring behind this year’s Personal Life, an album that has garnished mostly lukewarm reviews. Frontman Hutch Harris seemed to know people weren’t necessarily there for the relationship confessionals of Personal Life: “We’re going to play a lot of new songs,” he said while tuning a guitar, “Sorry.” The tracks from Personal Life, which can come off a tad flat on wax, had more energy live as Kathy Foster’s nasty bass tone and Westin Glass’ measured drumming formed a pummeling, locomotive rhythm section on cuts like “Never Listen to Me,” “You Changed My Life,” and “Power Lies.” Maybe Personal Life won’t go down as the most beloved Thermals album, but its highlights fit very nicely in the band’s live set between the agit-punk of The Body and the life/death worry of Now We Can See.
Taking the stage after a sweaty, shouty, distortion-heavy set from Staten Island upstart Cymbals Eat Guitars—that played a bunch of new tracks from its in-the-works sophomore album, which frontman Joseph D’Agostino joked was tentatively titled A Turtle—The Thermals kept the stage banter to a minimum. Apart from a quip about a broken guitar being “too emo” for the show and a handful of “thank yous,” Hutch Harris led his band through more than 20 songs in an hour and ten minutes, hitting the high points from The Thermals’ robust five-album catalog, including a real dust-up-inciting take on “No Culture Icons.” The Thermals kept the short songs coming fast, making it easy to wedge a new-album-heavy set in the middle of a greatest hits set, and ensuring The Thermals faithful all got what they paid for; another excellent scorched-Earth performance from pop-punk’s finest act.
