If Orange County Punk powerfuckers Thrice have it in them to write a bad song, well, they’re yet to give us any indication of that. Moving forward into their new album cycle and emerging from their recent studio hibernation today, the band are holding high above their heads a brand new single, ‘Scavengers’. The track is the first peek at what will be their eleventh full-length record, and Horizons/East is set for release on Friday, 17th September via Epitaph Records.
There’s a certain manic energy to ‘Scavengers’, a slight but noticeable shake of the hand. You feel it perhaps the most in the guitar work, which leads with an undeniably anxious energy. It’s the guitar that becomes the surrogate for listeners through which to experience ‘Scavengers’, synchronising with the hectic and erratic heart palpitations experienced by the average human in this day and age.
And thus within the opening seconds of ‘Scavengers’, we’re exposed to the deeper truth of Horizons/East, which is that it’s linked entirely to the human experience, or more pointedly, the ability to clock oneself amid the dizzying fall of personal and social disaster. Referencing the universal truths within the track, vocalist Dustin Kensrue explains his intentions to speak to the “toxic world views I once inhabited,” and ultimately the fact that “a lot of people that I love are still in that place.”
Recorded and produced by Thrice themselves, Horizons/East was never going to be an opportunity to do what they’ve done before. Confronted with isolation and the slow-motion trainwreck that was 2020, Thrice set themselves challenges and goals for the record using the quartal chords one would normally find in jazz, or implementing the Fibonacci sequence into song via guitar riff. But this isn’t a total departure from the Thrice of old, given that Horizons/East is yet another release from the group for both the thinkers and feelers of the world.
