But still, at their best, Thrice was a band that you turned up louder than everybody else when they came up on shuffle in the car. They were the post-hardcore band whose lyrics you could gobble up in the liner notes (back when liner notes were still a thing). They had depth, musical integrity, and a seemingly endless ability to churn out monstrous riffs and beautifully sad slow tracks side by side, or often as contrasting moments in the same song.

Years later — it feels like forever — Thrice are finally back with To Be Everywhere Is to Be Nowhere, an album that won’t count as their best, but feels like one of their biggest. Loud anthems rage throughout the record. Hurricane has riffs that are simply gigantic in scope. Blood on the Sand feels like it’s been lifted from The Artist in the Ambulance. The Window, a particular favourite of mine, has all the dissonance and power of the band’s most inventive records.

Almost every track on this record is a complete rager: Black Honey captures the band at their most radio-friendly and anthemic. Whistleblower is as politically aware as always (although perhaps a little less cryptic than some of the band’s lyrics have been previously).

If the album has any weak points, it’s that Thrice seems overly eager to make a point that they’re returning “to their roots,” despite focusing rather heavily on anthemic tracks. Death From Above and Stay with Me’s verses feel like quiet respites from the rest of the record — not because they show the band at their best (they certainly don’t), but because they give the listener a bit of a break.

Death From Above particularly benefits from this, because the quiet moments make the track’s pummelling chorus all the better. It becomes one of the better songs on the record, even though the verse is trite. (On the other hand, Stay with Me is a sour track, one that’s commercial to the point of degrading the band’s talent.)

The album closes out on a quieter, more somber note — in typical Thrice style, gratefully. Salt and Shadow is an excellent finisher, a song that captures everything I loved about Thrice’s quieter side years ago. It’s a tease, of course, because I wish there was more like this, but maybe that will come on the next record.

For now, it seems the message is simple: Thrice is back. They know who they are and what they stand for. And while they may be experimenting less than ever, they want us to know they refuse to “phone in” the record. To Be Everywhere is to Be Nowhere isn’t as good as Vheissu or The Alchemy Index, but I’d happily take it over much of the rest of their catalogue. It’s a welcome comeback.

The post Thrice: To Be Everywhere Is to Be Nowhere appeared first on Unsung Sundays.

That left School of Seven Bells with only one remaining member, Alejandra Deheza. She and Curtis had gone from being friends to being romantic partners to being only friends again, all while writing and touring together for over half a decade. Understandably, the album was shelved.

In October last year, Deheza surprised us all with the announcement that the final record she and Curtis worked on would be released this year. For fans, it’s been a long time coming. And for newcomers, this record is a sort of morbid curiosity.

SVIIB is, for all intents and purposes, a self-titled album named for the band’s popular short form. It’s clear from listening to it that Deheza has been working on the album since Curtis passed away, as it frequently sounds like a memorial to her friend.

But the album never descends into melancholy or despair. Moments of it feel as if they were written for Curtis after the fact, like Deheza’s refrain in lead single Open Your Eyes: “You are my pain love, you are my sorrows; Can’t you see we’re the same? You’ve got me crying, and now my heart is breaking. Cause I’ve been weeping and I’ve been waiting here silently for too long.”

Other songs are much more transparent: “Confusion weighs so heavy, and I understand nothing of these changes,” Deheza nearly whispers in a stand-out track where it feels like she’s barely holding it together. (It was the last track she and Curtis wrote together.) On A Thousand Times More, she promises to be there until the pain is gone. Elias walks down memory lane with her friend, and thanks him for the time they shared. On Music Takes Me, she gets even less subtle: “I just want to say thank you, thank you for all you gave,” she sings, laying her pain out against the anthemic synth pop background tracks.

Ultimately, that’s what makes SVIIB so compelling. While Deheza is dealing with unimaginable loss, the album never loses itself in the grief and constantly reminds the listener — and in its own way, Alejandra herself — that life is something you cherish while you share it.

On the album’s closer, This Is Our Time, School of Seven Bells stretches their wings for what’s likely the last time and sings about being free to dream. From anybody else, on any other record, it would sound like an inauthentic attempt at positivity. But on SVIIB, it’s given incredible depth. The album transcends synth pop, becoming an intimate and beautiful album dealing with grief and loss in a real, open, and healthy way.

SVIIB is the sort of album that tops year-end lists, exactly the kind you don’t want to miss. It has all the earmarks of a record that will be treasured for years to come.

The post School of Seven Bells: SVIIB appeared first on Unsung Sundays.

Of course, if the record was all ball-breaking, that’d be one hell of an assault on the ears. Thankfully, Black Joe Lewis knows how to mix things up and tracks like Come to My Party, a rock track with a groove if I’ve ever heard one, keep things interesting. Really, that’s revealing of the diversity of Black Joe Lewis’ influences. One minute, he’s shredding through back-breaking rock ‘n’ roll, and the next, he’s proving he listened to more than his fair share of The Ramones growing up on The Hipster (which I think is better than most of the stuff The Ramones put out).

Arguably, the second half of the album is better than first. Standouts like Make Dat Money and Mammas Queen are worth coming back to again and again. This is 2013 rock music done right.

The post Black Joe Lewis: Electric Slave appeared first on Unsung Sundays.