Non-Prog Album Reviews

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   About to do something odd here- that is, to review an album that was never actually released in this form. I've created my own version for review. Read on to the review itself for an explanation :)

The Alchemy Index
by Thrice
16 tracks, 63 mins
www.thrice.net

PROG INTEREST ALERT

In 2007 and 2008, alternative rock band Thrice released a series of four EPs, each one containing four songs that, lyrically and sonically, explored each of the four elements. There were flashes of brilliance but attempting to combine all four into one mega-album, I found the weaker songs continually irritating and that the 94 minute length was just too much. More than half the time Thrice were hitting it out of the box, but the times they weren't were enough to drag it down.
So I kicked out the two weakest songs for each element and made my own The Alchemy Index album, with sixteen of the original twenty-four tracks. I think it works really well and is a great listen and really feels like a complete album. If you're already into Thrice, let me know what you think of my playlist, or even get a few tracks off Itunes and see how you feel.

Tracklist

Fire
1 Firebreather
2 Backdraft
3 Burn The Fleet
4 The Flame Deluge

Water
5 Digital Sea
6 Open Water
7 Lost Continent
8 The Whaler

Air
9 Broken Lungs
10 The Sky Is Falling
11 Daedalus
12 Silver Wings

Earth
13 The Earth Isn't Humming
14 The Lion And The Wolf
15 Come All You Weary
16 Child Of Dust

(Note: Each of the final songs in each element is a sonnet set to music from the element's own perspective. The same tune is used for each, but the production/delivery is entirely different. The exception is water- water's sonnet, Kings Upon The Main, plods on and on and I had to cut it for the stronger water songs.)

And now, finally, the review!

Fire

As you might expect, the fire songs are the most volatile and rocking of the bunch, closest to Thrice's hardcore roots before they began to head in more progressive directions.
Firebreather begins with fire sirens before chunky guitars kick in and Dustin Kensrue's smouldering vocals fill out the sound. The lyric is a little hard to catch, but I believe it is about cremation, a great but unexpected angle to take in a song about fire. Firebreather is perhaps a bit musically simple but it is good fistpumping stuff and the bit where the choiral vocals kick in near the end is fantastic.
Backdraft, one of the more sinister songs Thrice have released, is a literal reference to the movie/phenomenon of Backdraft, where a seemingly out fire is reignited when you open a door and the oxygen comes in. Cleverly, the song makes this a metaphor for a dysfunctional relationship that keeps dying and flaring up destructively. Musically, the quiet, creepy verses (which demonstrate how much Kensrue sounds like Thom Yorke when he sings quietly, despite his loud voice sounding nothing like Yorke at all) explode terrifically into a chorus that feels a bit emotionally unhinged. Much like backdraft itself where the danger seems to have passed and then BOOM!
Burn The Fleet is next, the lyric a speech from a commander telling his soldiers to destroy the ships that took them to the foreign land they intend to conquer- retreat will be impossible so they will fight that much harder. This has happened several times, but apparently Kensrue was thinking specifically of Tariq Ibn Zayid. One of my favourite lyrics on a pretty lyrically impressive album and it is cheesy in just the right way to give it that epic, heroic flavour.
The fire section closes with the first sonnet, The Flame Deluge. WOW. The incredible RAGE and FURY the band unleashes here. It's almost unlistenable in its intensity and I'm sure that's quite intentional, though it does destroy the lyric, though it's fire talking about how ashamed it is of the way humans keep using it for destruction. This is about the closest I can imagine to what it would sound like if a volcano made a rock album.

Water

Ghosts of Radiohead again, as Digital Sea begins like it's going to turn into Everything In Its Right Place. However it turns out to be a lot more straightforward than that, a nice, cool piece of chilled electronic pop, which sets the tone for the sound of the water section. Digital Sea uses drowning as a metaphor for how we find ourselves being surrounded in technology which takes our lives over. "I am tangled in nets" etc.
Open Water mines similar territory sonically, though perhaps the tone is a bit more menacing. However, this time we get a big pop payoff in a lush, rich and catchy chorus that rises up like a wave. Lyrically, I think Kensrue is comparing the ocean, mysterious, cruel but the source of life, to god, bringing new meaning to "between the devil and the deep blue sea".
Next is Lost Continent, one of my favourites, corny though the sound and concept may seem to some. A very timely lyric, an obvious Atlantis reference, works as a comment on today's world. Like the Atlanteans, we are blind to the warnings as the water rises, soon to obliterate us all, until today's civilisation is just a legendary myth of a super-society that the descendants of the survivors doubt ever existed at all. I'm not saying I or Kensrue actually believe that will happen, but it's a very rich thought for poetry.
The last water song included is The Whaler, oceans as a metaphor for the divisons between people, the whaler out at sea and seperated from his family for years. An old timey feel is blended with a modern drumbeat for an interesting sound and the vocal parts are quite haunting.

Air

The air section is different from all the others in that it doesn't have a set sound. Whereas fire rocked, water was electronic/sleepy and earth will be rootsy and folksy, air (whether a creative accident or to deliberately suggest its capricious nature) is varied. Proceedings begin with Broken Lungs, Thrice's 9/11 song. Some will take exception to the lyric which indicates an American government conspiracy, but then Matt Bellamy's overt statement of the same belief doesn't seem to have hurt Muse's career much. The music for Broken Lungs goes from a quiet, pretty verse to an amped up chorus before a raging conclusion. "We want justice, we want the truth!"
The Sky Is Falling is a more conventional rocker, one of the pacier songs on offer, but the tense production and airy chorus keep it away from the mainstream. Lyrically, I think it's about the Israel/Palestine conflict- Kensrue doesn't take sides, but speaks about how the constant fear that death may fall on you from above eats away at your life.
Daedalus is of course about the legendary inventor and architect and is a retelling of the Icarus myth from his perspective. It is also a highlight of the entire album. Kensrue nails the lyric while guitarist Teppei Teranishi gets it just right, using his instrument to evoke the isolation Daedalus feels at the start, their ascent into the air and Icarus' fatal fall. The part where Daedalus cries "Oh gods why is this happening to me?" often brings a lump to my throat.
Silver Wings feels musically similar to some of the water music with its electronic vibe, but the breezy, whispery production really suits the element, and it is one of the prettier things on offer. Lyrically air wonders that it keeps everyone alive but is so abused by mankind's pollution in return.

Earth

To get a more earthy feel, the final segment finds Thrice putting the amplifiers and digital manipulators around, resulting in a more folksy sound. The Earth Isn't Humming is not actually an original, but a cover of a Frodus song. I must confess I have not heard the original and could not find it but I understand Frodus were a punk band so I imagine this is quite different. The bass is very insistent and gives the feel of things inevitably ticking along towards doom- tying into the lyric's concern that the earth is out of balance and the piper will have to payed.
The Lion And The Wolf I don't really get lyrically but I do like the creepy atmosphere the song creates. Nothing else on The Alchemy Index sounds quite like this. Whatever it's about, it's not particularly happy. I think perhaps it is about earthly concerns and animal instincts getting the better of us and leading to personal destruction.
Come All You Weary may appear depressing- it is a message to all the unwanted and downtrodden that when they die, the earth will receive them- but it is done in a very rootsy, raw way so that rather than being gloomy, it is oddly uplifting, a reminder that no matter how bad things are, when you've done all you can, eternal rest awaits you.
The closer, the final sonnet, Child Of Dust, is devestating as the earth, seeming to represent god, speaks of how it gave Eden but it was not enough for man's greedy grasp, who has proceeded to wreck everything around him. "And though I only ever give you love, like every child you've chosen to rebel..." But in the end, in death, man will return to Earth and perhaps his soul to god. At the song's conclusion, the sound goes funny because the microphone was actually placed in a coffin, sealed up and buried while it continued to record.
That was a cool idea, but I wish they'd done the same for all four sections, having a mic consumed in fire while recording remotely, sunk into the ocean in a bubble and perhaps let free into the air on a helium balloon to end each of the other sections.

Anyway, what we end up with is a very diverse and lyrically strong set of music that stimulates the brain, provides a bit of rock and pop and really pulls you in which is about the complete package. Yes, I did condense 4 EPs and prune eight songs (some are not so bad, such as the post-rock instrumental Night Diving- only water had an instrumental, perhaps they should've done one for each element- but some are definitely not worthwhile such as the interminably boring A Song For Milly Michaelson) so this is not what Thrice intended to present to its audience, but you know what they say about most double albums making one good album. While this makes one excellent album and I hope you check out the tunes that intrigue you.
Please let me know if anyone gives my imaginary album tracklist a go in its entirety ;)