A funny thing happened to me while I was waiting to see one of my favourite bands (Boy Sets Fire). One of the opening bands blew mind. No, it wasn't Rise Against, they were entertaining and energetic, but nothing really special. Neither was it Movielife, who I found average at best. Instead, it was one of the newest additions to the Victory roster, Thursday.
Mind you, I didn't come to the show completely unprepared. As I do before most show I plan to attend, I did some research on the openers, in order to enjoy the show. Long story short, I really enjoyed the free songs posted on the Victory website. I went to the show with high expectations, which were indeed fulfilled. However, as I ambled to the merch table to buy a copy of Full Collapse (which I had read good reviews about), I found that, much to my dismay, they didn't have it. I settled on the consolation prize, Waiting.
The first time through the CD, I was left a little disappointed. The emotion and passion from the live show was there, but the music wasn't quite there. Some of the melodies seem ill-concieved, leaving me scratching my head, and a bit depressed. Lead singer Geoff doesn't seem to have fully developed the vocal talent he displays on Full Collapse. The amazing screamed backup vocals (the first thing about Thursday to catch my attention) are there, but again, aren't as good as they could be.
If you ask me, the band made some curious choices when it came to ordering the tracks. For one thing, why is an instrumental called "Introduction" the fourth track? Sure, it serves as an introduction to "Streaks in the Sky", my personal favourite from the CD, but that's just odd... Also, "Porcelain" isn't a very good song to open the album. The opener sets the tone for the album. "Porcelain" is a depressing, downer of a song.
Finally, the last thing that bugs me about this CD, is there's not enough music for it to be considered an album. Sure, it's 33 minutes long, but only 9 tracks. Even then, track 4 and 5 are really the same song, and track 9 is more of a spoken word, leaving us a total of....7 songs. Maybe I'm being too picky, but had this been released and sold as an EP, I would have been more satisfied.
Now that I've finished cutting this CD to pieces, I should say that some of the music is pretty good. This young band shows a lot of promise, and you can see just why Victory picked them up. I'd recommend going for Full Collapse first, then if you can't get enough Thursday, hunt this down.