A City By The Light Divided,
Thursday'Full Collapse' will always be my favourite Thursday album. When it first came out I overplayed it so much that I don't think any record by that band will ever mean as much as that one. I really enjoyed 'War All The Time' too, even though it was nowhere near as commercially successful and suffered mixed reviews. 'A City By The Light Divided' is on a par with the band's second release. You can tell they've spent a long, long time working on this record - it's passionate and energetic and gritty in a way the second album wasn't - but it still doesn't hit 'Full Collapse's' heady heights. That doesn't make it bad, average, poor or even just good - after all, I don't think Thursday are anything short of very good at all times. But there is something lacking with would take this from four stars to the next level.
'A City By The Light Divided' certainly isn't as intense as either of their first two records. While still powerful and passionate, it's not as musically or emotionally heavy. With layers of instrumentation and added melodies used throughout, it's a record you can tell has been carefully loved and created. 'On The Other Side Of The Crash/Over And Out [Of Control]' and 'Running From The Rain' crash through your speakers, and even the added synth/keys don't detract from the quality of these songs. 'At This Velocity' may be intense, but this is re-dressed with 'Counting 5-4-3-2-1', arguably the poppiest Thursday have ever been.
While 'A City By The Light Divided' isn't a massive departure from what Thursday have done before, the tweaks and twists the band have adopted don't always serve them best. They're still the Thursday we know and love, just a little bit older and wiser. They've clearly made the album they wanted to make rather than the album they may have been expected to make, and a more mature sound makes this one of the years better albums. I still don't believe the band will ever better the rawness of 'Full Collapse' and maybe that's a hinderance to a band that will always have such a great album as a comparison to anything they do in the future. It's a toss-up as to whether this is better than 'War All The Time', but either way, it's still a record that all Thursday fans must own.
www.thursday.net
Island Records
paul
