For the past couple of weeks I've been wholly addicted to The Thermals 2006 record "The Body, The Blood, The Machine," a loosely-tied-together concept record about two young lovers fleeing a Christian theocracy, kind of like "American Idiot" without the suburban angst. Indeed, it's that relationship between the characters, exemplified most in the touching closer "I Hold the Sound," that gives this record more of a grounded humanity that many punk screeds lack (although the record is hardly devoid of those, either.) It also disposes of unfocused anger in favor of the truth that having to leave a once-treasured community is often bittersweet ("Maybe when I die, I won't die escaping/I'll die returning to the fold.")The Thermals Myspace
