by Rinjo Njori

Island Records 2006


Thursday return with A City By The Light Divided, which is a huge leap ahead of their last release War All the Time. City is easily the band's strongest recorded output thus far in their careers. On War, the band seemed to lack any of the determination and ambition that dominated their breakout release, Full Collapse. The strength of Full Collapse catapulted them to the forefront of the alternative music scene in 2002. In an immediate nod back to the song that defined Full Collapse, "Understanding a Car Crash", Thursday open up A City By The Light Divided, with "The Other Side of the Crash/ Over and Out Of Control" which not only sounds like the former but sets the tone and the expectation that Thursday have regained that passion which made Full Collapse such a great disc, while forging ahead and showing that they have grown as a band and more importantly as songwriters.

The lead single for A City By The Light Divided, "Counting 5-4-3-2-1", is probably the most commercial and least adventurous song on the album or of Thursday's career. The song is all Thursday and they leave all their influences at the door. This isn't a bad thing, but it severely undercuts the passion and pain that Thursday put into A City By The Light Divided. The song attempts the urgency and primal rage, but the backing vocals are a mess and not in the way that made the songs on Full Collapse sound entirely new. Thankfully, that is the worst that can be said about any of the tracks. The rest, as they say, "is all good!" "Sugar and Sacrament" is the closest Thursday come to the tempo and feel of the Morrissey/ Marr comparisons that were initially heaped upon them when they burst out from the New Jersey hardcore scene. Now they justify that praise and don't rest on their laurels. The spacy interludes that flow in an out of this song show the growing influence of classic rock, particularly Wall-era Pink Floyd, and early 80's new wave, particularly the guitar sound of Scotland's Big Country. "At This Velocity" is a raw and angry song that has all signature sounds of Full Collapse, yet Thursday take it to the next level and add to that formula, in essence, pushing it to the next level. Something they were unable to accomplish on War All the Time. "Arc-Lamps, Signal Flares, A Shower of White (The Light)" is stuck in the middle of this album and while it gives the band to explore their "shoe gazer tendencies" you tend to miss Rickley's heartfelt musings. Still how far the band has come since the "A0005", the intro on Full Collapse, is not so surprising. Even though War All the Time, doesn't age as well as Full Collapse, they progressed as

On the opening track Thursday acknowledge that "car crash came and crash went," but they also acknowledge that "it will never be the same." Their desire to understand where "this" will lead them bodes very well for Thursday. In between disc's they were all to honest that the band might not survive, but for the sake of their fans they would try to make the best recording possible. They owe their success on A City By The Light Divided, to themselves.