Thursday
No Devolución

It's easy to say emo.

And it can mean an endless number of things, and as a good label, it can be attached to the most varied things, from the beauty of Mineral to disgraceful rubbish like My Chemical Romance. Sometimes it depends on the years in which it is produced, sometimes not. As far as I'm concerned, I don't care about consumption and fashion factors, and for me, emo means pure emotion (contextualized within a certain hybrid musical genre of definite post-hardcore and also, forgive me, the offspring of Codeine and Karate), and I include Glassjaw, our own Klimt 1918, and Thursday. With this No Devoluciòn, we are faced with a rather different work from the previous Common Existence, in which there was always a latent punk hardcore fury. Here everything is under formalin. Maybe it's because the urges of violence frontman Geoff Rickly got rid of in the grindcore project United Nation (stuff to make you lick your toes), or who knows what, anyhow, we enter a white atmospheric space, but beware, it is not aseptic.

First point: the album is produced by David Fridmann, someone who doesn't joke around with sounds, ask Mogwai and Mercury Rev, and indeed the result is crystalline fresh air. The album starts right away with a declaration of artistic intentions. "Fast To The End" is purity, despite the introductory guitar assault, we are immediately catapulted into an interweaving of ethereal guitars and synths that accompany a breathy voice. The chorus is reminiscent of Deftones vocally speaking, and when the screams arrive, they fade into infinity. An "enormous" synth with epic tones introduces the 80s "No Answers" with a chorus as crooked as it is melodic, opening onto very thick guitars, the voice ending up reminding me (with due distance) of Martin Gore from Depeche Mode.

The guitars become thorny and punkish on "Open Quotes" that launch a piercing cry embedded in a blast of keyboard, the voice opens up to more aggressive territories, with broken riffs on straight drums, textbook post-hardcore, before tiptoeing back. "Past And Future Ruins" is a faded photograph of post-apocalyptic visions, piano, effects, and a guitar introduce postmodern tribal rhythms over the usual crystalline vocal setup, exploding into straight, distorted guitar lashes, until reaching inhuman screams that last the time to find the ether again. Special mention for the spacey "Empty Glass", a cosmic organ spreading a dust carpet to a voice lost in the cosmos, blue notes of sadness, oblivion, introducing the accordion of "A Gun In The First Act", a crescendo of mechanical, inhuman tribal rhythms, and harsh and gigantic guitars that morph into something monstrous.

Are you in the mood for cheerfulness? You've come to the wrong place.

Emo is as Emo does.