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To Be Everywhere Is to Be Nowhere

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To Be Everywhere Is to Be Nowhere is the ninth studio album by the American rock band Thrice. The album will be released on May 27, 2016 through Vagrant Records.[1] To Be Everywhere Is to Be Nowhere is Thrice's first release after coming out of four-year hiatus—from mid-2012 to mid-2015—and first album of original material in five years since 2011's Major/Minor. Thrice promoted To Be Everywhere Is to Be Nowhere with online streams of the tracks "Blood on the Sand" and "Black Honey".

Background

Thrice decided to go on an indefinite hiatus in 2012 following the supporting tours of their 2011 eighth studio album, Major/Minor. In their break-up announcement, the band members cited several reasons for the break including an intense touring and writing schedule for 13 years, each member's evolving music tastes and not being able to spend enough time with their families.[2] Vocalist and guitarist Dustin Kensrue assured fans that Thrice would one day return. He said: "Thrice is not breaking up. If nothing has broken us up by now, I doubt anything ever could. However, we will be taking a break from being a full-time band, and the upcoming tour in the Spring will be the last one for the foreseeable future."[2] Released months after the band officially parted ways in 2012, the 24-song live album Anthology captured Thrice's final tour and for several years remained the band's then-final release.

During their hiatus, most members of Thrice continued to perform music in various projects. Kensure continued his work as a worship director at Mars Hill Church until 2014 when he left amid controversies surrounding evangelical Christian Mark Driscoll.[2][3] He continued his solo music career and released two studio albums under his own name during the hiatus: The Water & the Blood (2013) and Carry the Fire (2015). Kensrue also formed a new band under the moniker The Modern Post that performed worship music and released two EPs—Grace Alone (2012) and Lowborn King (2014)—through Mars Hill Church's own label, Mars Hill Music.[4] Drummer Riley Breckenridge formed a grindcore and baseball-themed band called Puig Destroyer, an amalgamation of the grindcore band Pig Destroyer and baseball player Yasiel Puig.[5] Puig Destroyer released two EPs—Puig Destroyer (2013) and Wait for Spring (2013)—and a full-length studio album Puig Destroyer (2014). Bassist Eddie Breckenridge was briefly a member of Tom DeLonge's Angels & Airwaves in 2014.[6]

In December 2014, Thrice announced they would reform in the following year.[7] Kensrue was at a Brand New show in Seattle with guitarist Teppei Teranishi when he realized he wanted to get Thrice back together.[8] He texted his former bandmates and said (roughly): "I miss you, I miss making music with you and I hope that we can do it again."[9] Riley Breckenridge said that text message quickly "snowballed" into conversations about performing shows and writing new music again.[9] Kensure said the hiatus was important because band needed to take time off and form a new appreciation for Thrice. He elaborated: "The break was a good thing, a really good thing [...] I think it was healthy, as much as I think it was hard for everyone in the band in different ways at the time we took the break, but coming back, I also think we're all grateful for it."[4] The band has said the with their reunion, Thrice would take a more structured approach with writing and touring so that they wouldn't be away from their families and other responsibilities for extended periods of time.[8][9] In December 2015, after performing at various festival dates throughout most of the year, Thrice formally announced they would release a new album in 2016.[10]

Writing and recording

For the majority of Thrice's career, all of the band members lived within close proximity to each other in California, but during the hiatus, several members moved out of state or to different cities. To Be Everywhere Is to Be Nowhere was the first album written primarily through file sharing ideas and demo recordings over the internet. Though the band made an effort to write material while they were together at various festival dates in 2015, the majority of the album was created virtually.[8] Riley Breckenridge said he found the situation to be challenging and would have preferred to jam together in person as a band instead. He said, "I think it was difficult to not have a lot of time to jam stuff out but I think it also forced us to be more creative in the studio once we all got together and actually started recording the songs. It was an exciting way to write a record because it was a new way to write, but it was also daunting because it was unfamiliar."[8] Kensrue said he felt the extra time and distance allowed each member to act more creatively and ultimately greatly benefited the finished album.[11] The members of Thrice also had to write around their family's schedules—at the time of recording, Kensrue and Teranishi both had three kids and Riley Breckenridge just had his first.[8]

To Be Everywhere Is to Be Nowhere was produced by Eric Palmquist (Mutemath, Dot Hacker, Eyes Set to Kill).[12][13] Contrasting the more intense production schedules for previous albums where the band would spend "eight hours a day, every day, in the studio," Thrice recorded music in sessions every other day to prevent burnout and keep the engineering process fun.[11]

Music and lyrics

The members of Thrice have stated that while elements or parts of To Be Everywhere Is to Be Nowhere might recall other albums in their discography, the new album has a unique sound of its own. Riley Breckenridge said, "I think there is a different sound but I also think that there is a healthy nod to some of our back catalog in a lot of the music. There's stuff on this record that wouldn't necessarily feel out of place on The Artist in the Ambulance, or Vheissu or wouldn't have felt out of place if it was part of The Alchemy Index or Beggars, or Major/Minor. But at the same time it's also pushing that kind of stuff forward."[8] Similarly, Kensure said, "I don't know that this new record sounds like a huge jump. It's very different from Major/Minor or Beggars, but I feel like it's not this giant move."[14] Lars Gotrich of NPR noted that the promotional track "Black Honey" musically recalled "late-period Cave In" and compared Kensrue's vocals to the "soulful rasp of Soundgarden's Chris Cornell."[1] Thrice also made an effort in the studio to make a "seamless record from track to track," which they achieved by having "an outro will bleed into an intro for another song or there’s a segue."[8]

Where as previous Thrice albums have lyrically focused on literary, biblical and occasional science-fiction themes, To Be Everywhere Is to Be Nowhere touches on various political, cultural and social themes for most of the album.[11] Generally speaking about the album's lyrics, Kensrue said, "I would definitely say that we've drawn a lot of our influence from the current state of politics, but I also like to personalize things when I write, and I've always written that way."[11] The song "Blood On the Sand" (with the opening line: "We wave our flags, we swallow fear like medicine / We kiss the hands of profiteers and their congressmen"[14]) was described as having "much more hard-hitting political dialogue"[11] and Kensrue elaborated in another interview that, "I've usually tried to stay out of being explicitly political in the sense of being partisan, at least in my art. I really hate the party system and think it's a huge part of a lot of the problems we have [...] I try not to go to the party lines but to just talk about actual social issues that have political ramifications."[14] The song "Black Honey" conjures imagery of a man swatting at bees in order to collect their honey while becoming confused why they would sting him back, which Kensrue said "seemed a fitting metaphor for much of U.S. foreign policy."[15] The song "Whistleblower" is about Edward Snowden, who famously leaked NSA documents proving that the government was spying on American citizens without warrant.[11] Kensrue said about half the tracks on To Be Everywhere Is to Be Nowhere follow this explicitly political theme, while the rest were described as being more broadly focused and touched on social or cultural concepts.[11]

Marketing and promotion

Prior to the release of To Be Everywhere Is to Be Nowhere, Thrice promoted the album with an online stream of two tracks. The first, "Blood on the Sand," became available online on March 24, 2016.[16] Kensrue said picking the debut track to promote an album is always difficult because of all the guesswork involved, but ultimately selected this one because: "It has an immediacy to it, the pacing—I really like the song in general, it's pretty strong melodically, energetically."[14] That song was followed by "Black Honey" a month later on April 27, which was one of the first tracks Thrice wrote after reuniting.[1][15]

With the announcement of the end of the band's hiatus, the members of Thrice also said that their touring in support of future albums starting with To Be Everywhere Is to Be Nowhere would be significantly scaled back from their more rigorously scheduled touring days before the hiatus in order to spend more time with their families and other projects.[8][9] Riley Breckenridge said, "when we were in The Artist in the Ambulance [2003] or Vheissu [2005] days we'd be on tour for about 8 to 10 months out of the year" but for upcoming tours, "I think we're going to scale it back, and I believe the longest that we'll be out for is three weeks to a month. Then we're going to make sure that we have a decent gap where we can be at home and take care of stuff on the homefront."[8] Thrice's first tour for To Be Everywhere Is to Be Nowhere will be a June 2016 North American tour with support from La Dispute and Gates.[17]

Track listing

  1. "Hurricane" – 4:44
  2. "Blood on the Sand" – 2:50
  3. "The Window" – 3:34
  4. "Wake Up" – 4:07
  5. "The Long Defeat" – 4:11
  6. "Seneca" – 1:00
  7. "Black Honey" – 3:59
  8. "Stay with Me" – 4:00
  9. "Death from Above" – 3:37
  10. "Whistleblower" – 3:26
  11. "Salt and Shadow" – 6:08

References

  1. ^ a b c Gotrich, Lars (April 27, 2016). "Viking's Choice: Thrice, 'Black Honey'". NPR. Retrieved April 28, 2016.
  2. ^ a b c Adams, Gregory (November 23, 2011). "Thrice Announce Indefinite Hiatus". Exclaim!. Retrieved April 28, 2016.
  3. ^ Lodge, Carey (September 5, 2014). "Seismic shift in Mars Hill leadership as three more pastors step down". Christian Today. Retrieved April 28, 2016.
  4. ^ a b Santos, Mirium (December 14, 2015). "Dustin Kensrue talks covers and the return of Thrice". Orange County Register. Digital First Media. Retrieved April 28, 2016.
  5. ^ Bayer, Jonah (September 16, 2014). "An Interview with Puig Destroyer, America's Best Baseball-Themed Grindcore Band". Noisey. Vice. Retrieved April 28, 2016.
  6. ^ Sharp, Tyler (July 8, 2014). "Eddie Breckenridge (ex- Thrice) joins Angels And Airwaves". Alternative Press. Retrieved April 28, 2016.
  7. ^ Crane, Matt (December 22, 2014). "It looks like Thrice are coming back in 2015". Alternative Press. Retrieved April 28, 2016.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i Oswald, Derek (April 27, 2016). "Interview With Riley Breckenridge of Thrice". AltWire. Retrieved April 28, 2016.
  9. ^ a b c d Shutler, Ali (March 2016). "You can thank Brand New for the Thrice reunion". Up Set. The Bunker Publishing. Retrieved April 28, 2016.
  10. ^ Sharp, Tyler (November 23, 2015). "Thrice to release new album in 2016". Alternative Press. Retrieved April 28, 2016.
  11. ^ a b c d e f g Montemarano, Mike (April 25, 2016). "'Blood on the Sand:' A Conversation With Thrice". BaebleMusic. Retrieved April 28, 2016.
  12. ^ Tate, Jason (April 2016). "Thrice Post Studio Update". Chorus.fm. Retrieved April 28, 2016.
  13. ^ "Eric Palmquist – Credits". AllMusic. All Media Network. Retrieved April 28, 2016.
  14. ^ a b c d Dionne, Zach (April 5, 2016). "Thrice's Dustin Kensrue Interview on Comeback Album, Twitter Trolls & 'Stage Three' for the Band". Fuse. Retrieved April 28, 2016.
  15. ^ a b Hingle, James (April 28, 2016). "Thrice Are Streaming A New Song". Kerrang!. Bauer Media Group. Retrieved April 28, 2016.
  16. ^ Sharp, Tyler (March 24, 2016). "Thrice announce comeback album with new song, 'Blood On The Sand'". Alternative Press. Retrieved April 28, 2016.
  17. ^ Sharp, Tyler (January 19, 2016). "Thrice announce headlining tour with La Dispute". Alternative Press. Retrieved April 28, 2016.
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