The Thermals Working On New Album, Get Dolled Up

Portland-based fun punks the Thermals took the world by storm when they released their opus The Body, The Blood, The Machine in 2006. Following a slew of dates all over the world and some late night talk show appearances, the band were left without a drummer and forced to pick up the pieces. Fortunately, they’re back on track and hard at work on Now We Can See, their fourth long-player, with the Paper Chase’s John Congleton, who has worked with everyone from Modest Mouse to R. Kelly.

In an interview with Pitchfork, guitarist and songwriter Hutch Harris revealed that the label for the record is somewhat in the air:

Nothing is for sure right now for us. Sub Pop offered us a contract for two more records, which we ended up turning down, this was a little while ago. We had no problems with Sub Pop and we absolutely loved working with them, Kathy [Foster] and I just felt that we needed to go it alone again, for ourselves, for our "art," if even for just a short while. We've considered releasing the record ourselves, or licensing it ourselves to different territories. We are currently talking to many great labels, one of them being Sub Pop. It's still my favorite label.

Now We Can See will start tracking next month, and should be out by the end of the year.

Also in Thermals-related news, the band’s likenesses have been captured in the form of knitted dolls, as you can see above. Hutch and Kathy were "dolled up” by artist Laura Granlund for her Intimidation label, which has also done an actually stuffed dinosaur for Dinosaur Jr., as well as a stuffed Conan O’Brien. You can check out her stuff by clicking here.

Now We Can See tentative tracklisting:

"When I Died”
"I Called Out Your Name”
"When I Was Afraid”
"Liquid In, Liquid Out”
"I Let It Go”
"At the Bottom of the Sea”
"When We Were Alive”
"Now We Can See”
"Dreaming of You (And How We Fade)”
"You Dissolve”

The Thermals "Pillar of Salt”