Thank, or more formally, The Rock Band Thank from Leeds sit somewhere between the sludgier side of the UK’s punk scene, and the post punk that has scene outposts in every city. Neither of these sides particularly have a love for synths like the band does.
I Have A Physical Body That Can Be Harmed is Thank’s second album and first on new label Big Scary Monsters. New labels can mean taking a step more mainstream, but the album comes rawer in production and more intense in instrumentation. The songwriting and arrangement are more focused, and although there are big hooks – 31/26/practical ways to prepare for the rapture from ‘Perhaps Today’ will get lodged in your head after hearing it – album opener ‘Control’ and ‘The Spores’ have a slower build into a frenzy over the immediacy of some of the albums “pop hits.”
Talking of the album’s pop hits, single ‘Woke Frasier’ has the trademark misanthropic lyrics – Fraisier has gone woke. There are no punchline bars, but the humour is obvious, without falling into the trappings of preaching to the choir. There is no wait for applause, and it doesn’t make previous album single ‘Good Boy’ hypocritical. It takes a lot of nerve to be able to commit to lines and sell them straight, with no sarcasm, and not having it come off as endorsement or cliche.
“It takes a lot of nerve to be able to commit to lines and sell them straight, with no sarcasm, and not having it come off as endorsement or cliche.”
There’s more dancey moments in the single ‘Do It Badly’, that could easily be seen as a more gritty indie sleaze anthem. Although disperate on a surface level, there’s an undercurrent of movement in both sides. There’s an energy of agitation, and not of stillness. The agitation runs through the more punk tracks of ‘Perhaps Today’ and ‘Dead Dog in Ditch’ (originally released on a double a side from Yard Act’s label Zen FC), giveing a counterpoint to the abrasive sound design of some of the other tracks.
Thank blends riffs and synths in a way many bands can’t. Trying to recommend them to fans of other bands is predetermined on the fact that you can’t just be a fan of that band, genre, or scene. Someone who’s a fan of the synthier side of the South London Windmill post punk scene might not be as into the riffs, but someone coming from Chat Pile’s second album could be put off by some of the sections more indebted to dance music. I Have A Physical Body That Can Be Harmed straddles these genre gaps and draws bridges. The Rock Band Thank From Leeds don’t fit, and why should they?