Thursday - Common Existence

Channeling the urgency and jagged emotion of earlier Thursday recordings, combined with gargantuan choruses and a penchant for clever melody, Common Existence - the New Jersey collective's fifth album - is an impressive effort that raises the bar for the countless imitators of the post-hardcore scene. Resuscitation Of A Dead Man sprays its riff and drum combo like machine gun fire that briefly settles into deep grooves, unleashing bristling screams. This sets a pace for the album, continued in As he Climbed The Dark Mountain and Friends In The Armed Forces - a track solidifying the band's disdain for the deployment of troops (or rather, close friends) in the middle east. Tracks like Beyond The Visible Spectrum, and closer You Were The Cancer, demonstrate a now well-honed songwriting sensibility, that despite often sticking to tried and tested methods, is clearly coming of age and doing so gracefully, if a little angrily. [Ryan Drever]