God in the Machine

VS

#5 The Thermals- The Body, The Blood, The Machine vs #12 The Postal Service- Give Up

I've never been a person who listens to the same song over and over again in a row (Liza Shore and I were once comparing the "most played" track on our itunes...mine at the time was "New Slang" which had roughly 50 plays, her was, I believe, either "The Frug" or "Does He Love You?" and either way, it had like 200. that one song was all she listened to for weeks) , and since the advent of the ipod everything in my life is constantly on shuffle, so its hard to even play out albums. But I still manage sometimes, and once its done, once i'm over something, its hard to get under it again. But does that make it worth less? Does that mean it couldn't have been that good in the first place, or just that I misused it, Mark Prior style, and sucked out all the goodness too soon? And what is that worth in the incredibly arbitrary ranking system I've set up.

The Arguments: A couple of weeks ago I wrote about The Thermals Fuckin' A, and was disappointed to come to the conclusion that while there are a bunch of good songs on that album, a great album it is not. The Body, The Blood, The Machine is. Once again proving my love for concept alubms, TBTBTM (unnecessary acronym alert!) is a song cycle about a dystopic future where a couple or a group must escape from a pseudo-fascist Christian state. The album opens with a retelling of some of the highlights of the Bible ("God reached his hand down from the sky/He flooded the land then he set it afire", "God told his son it's time to come home/I promise you wont have to die all alone" etc) which, upon first lesson, had me (and other fans, apparently) wondering if the Thermals had grown up and found God (not all Christian music is bad, but it would have been somewhat disappointing, still), but especially when read retroactively through the rest of the albums' lens, its clear the tone is not as reverant as it appears on first listen. And while the political bent is clearly anti-organized religion (the longest song in the Thermals catalogue "Power Doesn't Run On Nothing" dispels any lingering myths about that, as the powers that be insist that we "Give us what we're asking for/Cause either way we're gonna take it" and that their power runs on, among other things, blood and the land we're standing on.) there are times when characters or narrators feel conflicted and even regret leaving the Christian enclave and hope that when they die they can return to God. So not only is this a nuanced and well thought out cinematic album crying out against something that some (read: me) consider to too often a force for evil in this world, but, as this is the Thermals, the songs still rock. The Thermals have grown up here, they have a whole album of ideas, but they don't lease their poppy punk edge, or their blistering sound, or even the fun at their shows. "Here's Your Future" is as good a punk song as any I have heard, it just happens to tell a Biblical story and be a part of something bigger at the same time. No small feat, that.

I bought Give Up at a Best Buy in Florida while staying with my grandma, and implored a friend to arrange my first favorite song from the album for his acapella group. Neither of those things illuminates anything particular about the album, except that they evoke a very specific time in my life when Give Up was in steady rotation for me. Listening to it again, its still good, and there are still good songs, but I don't hear it the same way I did then. And I loved it then. Almost every one of the ten songs was a favorite at one time or another (though now, clearly, "District Sleeps Alone Tonight" is head-and-shoulders above the rest, the one lingering love from an album I moved on from) and I loved what I perceived as the ingenuity of both form and creation (for anyone who doesn't read any popular musical publication, The Postal Service is a long-distance collaboration between lyricist and songwriter Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie fame and producer and beatmaker James Tamberello, who records under the name Dntel using, what else, the mail). I loved Gibbard's lyrics, and loved hearing them over electornic beats and drum machines instead of guitars or strings. And I still like all that, and their still good songs, and I love them for using Jenny Lewis as the main backup singer and I look forward to the collaboration that is supposed to drop this year, but its not like it was. I know better songwriters who work in the same idiom as Gibbard, and have moved up and out of that electronica-lite phase (Dntel's solo work is way better, musically, and even that isn't my favorite stuff). The album is good, its solid, the songs are highly listenable, but like so many quick flings that flame out (okay, not that many, but everyone has some, including me), sometimes its hard to see what you were so attracted to in the first place. I don't regret my days in bed with this album, and I have fond memories and one great keepsake, but its not something to write home about (so many puns there).

The Score: If this was the battle of two great track ones, it might be a good fight, but as is, its no longer close.

The Body, The Blood, The Machine d. Give Up 87-50


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