Thank: I Have A Physical Body That Can Be Harmed
Big Scary Monsters
Released 8th November
In 2022, The Quietus’ chief psych-rock adjudicator JR Moores proposed that Thank’s debut album brought “noise rock kicking and screaming into the volatile 2020s”. Two years and numerous lineup shifts later, here’s their monstrously successful attempt to do the same in another genre: bastardising dance music with a noise-rock cleaver.
Since that debut, which featured Leeds recording titan Rob Slater on drums and the city’s PT Barnum of weirdo gigs, Theo Gowans, on electronics, Thank have now taken noise drummer Steve Myles aboard and bid a totally non-acrimonious adieu to the aforementioned noisemaker. Thank(s) to this personnel switcharoo, and the more prominent meddling of genres like dance and hip-hop, album number two is more melodic in places, though still monolithically heavy in others; the post-punk to their first album’s skronking no-wave, to put it chronologically.
Immediately, and with startling immediacy, Control is among the most divergent tracks from their previous output. Primed on Floating Points synth melodies they then – with the band’s rhythmic engine, courtesy of the metal-flecked drums, and the vocal lurch from the most sung vocals yet to the filthiest – brew a noise-rock build in the vein of Sex Swing. Of course, this is only complete with an almighty release, delivered with enough rampant force, discordant electronics and rabid snarls to rival Mr. Bungle.
Despite this opening, the synths are generally less discombobulating and brighter on I Have A Physical Body That Can Be Harmed, extracting new electronics master Lewis Millward’s fondness for techno, as on Woke Frasier, which retains a Thank-ful edge via its violin-esque stabs. As this suggests – via a dismantling of right-wing shock jocks and their talking points – the lyrics on Thank’s second album are a vast net of personal, political, and the absurd. The quality of Woke Frasier’s punk satire, as punchy as anything on Dead Kennedy’s debut album, is replicated throughout.
IHAPBTCBH loosely continues the debut album’s fixation on death and religion – going down slightly more nihilistic paths. The Spores shows off Thank’s power of amorphously wrapping these quasi-religious ruminations into other topics, ambiguously morphing thoughts on death into uniquely queasy territory around fantastical fungi. This is subtly extended across the following track, Down With The Sickness, a not so Disturbed vision of decay which dwells on the woes beneath the gleaming facade of new technologies.
The Spores also indulges in Thank’s longest track since Petrol Head, from the beloved Thankology record, allowing them to fully embrace a jam-like state where Salford psych rock chameleons GNOD meet Dälek’s industrial hip-hop. Petering out on melodic synth chemtrails, the track dies a symbolic death, sucking other genres in as it bleeds out.
Though they have come a long way since fellow Thankology track Fragile Ego, album highlight Barely is the closest you’ll get to “Thank goes pop”, displaying their canny ability for an earworm chorus. Dead Dog In A Ditch, alternatively, is one of the record’s best examples of rough, rowdy, rollicking dance-punk, bearing the painfully serrated points of their guitars. In a podcast earlier this year, the frontman stated that this version (the original was the B-side to Torture Cube) was the result of a friendly tug-of-war between his slower preference and their new drummer’s faster hardcore preference. What was eventually born is the perfect stepping stone from those opposing views: a slightly sludgy, Melvins-esque, rabid Frankenstein.
The vocals remain a spoken-screaming enigma across IHAPBTCBH, as Freddy Vinehill-Cliffe almost palpably restrains himself from a sung form, maintaining an incredibly satisfying equilibrium; the elongated “excuse me” on Writing Out A List Of All The Names Of God is the surprisingly melodic, but remains sufficiently odd, thankfully.
Has Thank matured? Musically, yes, complimented by naked experimentation – lyrically, no, as a healthy amount of silliness lurks beneath the complex self-flagellation and knotty themes. Is this a superior follow-up to a fiendishly great, stand-out album of the decade? An emphatic yes.
Get a copy of Thank’s new album here.
Follow the band on social media.
~
Review by James Kilkenny. Read more of his Louder Than War articles here.
We have a small favour to ask. Subscribe to Louder Than War and help keep the flame of independent music burning. Click the button below to see the extras you get!
