Thursday – A City by the Light Divided

Despite all my bad talk about Thursday, I was really looking forward to hearing A City By The Light Divided – their follow up to the highly successfulWar All The Time – because I had recently regained a new sense of hope for the band. They had put on a great performance at Taste Of Chaos (they were easily the best band there behind Dredg), and were really nice guys when I interviewed them. This all added up to building some excitement for a CD I would’ve otherwise ignored. So I went into A City By The Light Divided with an open mind, and, sadly, I’ve ended up going back to my old pessimistic view of the band that I had before hand.

The fact of the matter is that I simply don’t like Thursday. I just can’t seem to find their appeal to the masses no matter how hard I try. Their music, although well written, always seems too slick and over-produced. It seems to be stuck in that limbo period between aggressive and atmospheric as it searches for a place to call its own. A City.. is no different, they seem to be searching for the perfect mix and can’t quite find it. Add in the super slick production by Dave Fridmann, and you find it hard to believe they could pull off some of the tunes on stage.

It’s not only the music that I have a problem with though, it is in fact Geoff Rickly’s vocals which really halt my enjoyment of the music. While he’s an ultra-nice guy, I just can’t seem to get into his singing style. Particular on this CD, where, for the most part, his vocal tracks seem to be mixed pretty low in the mix so it fails to really jump out at you other than a select few tracks like Running From The Rain andCounting 5-4-3-2-1. Lyrically though, Rickly has always impressed me – and he has done so once again here as he croons out stories through his lyrics. Stories of love. Stories of death. Stories of opposition. And stories of hope.

The reality of it all is this: Thursday fans will love this album. It sounds just like a more complete and well-rounded band than before and most people will love it. Me? Well, I just never liked Thursday and this hasn’t changed my position.