The Thermals cd review

Personal Life
3/5
The Thermals never pretended to be anyone’s savior, so the Portland band took a lot of people by surprise with its galvanizing third disc, The Body, The Blood, The Machine, a potent cocktail of punk, concept-album polemics and power-pop. Since then, the trio has retreated from the front a bit. The aptly titled Personal Life, the group’s fifth, isn’t the sort of angry and alive album that will make you want to rise up and reclaim America. Instead, guitarist and frontman Hutch Harris focuses on matters of the heart, though focus may be too strong a word. The hooks on singalongs ‘I Don’t Believe You’ and ‘Never Listen to Me’ are a little too pat, the playing on ‘Not Like Any Other Feeling’ and ‘Your Love Is So Strong’ a little too slack, lacking some needed insistence. But you know what? That’s fine. It’s nice to have a warm, comfy security blanket of a guitar band that can be counted on to deliver an easy half-hour. At the least, Personal Life reaffirms Harris as one of indie-dom’s most affable singers. Vague disillusionment simmers beneath the surface of ‘Power Lies’, but the song – and much of the record – is just a few layers of polish from a peppy alt-rock anthem.