Thoughts’ debut track “Tuck” is a welcome resurrection of the once fashionable early post-rock formula. The track employs the same nauseating claustrophobic guitar style punctuated with deadpan vocal breaks iconic of the late ‘80s. The final product is what you might imagine if you combined the uneven and borderline feral instrumentation of Doolittle-era Pixies with the droning half-singing of Built to Spill’s Doug Martsch.
Like the band’s predecessors, the Brighton-based alt-rock outfit shines in its compositional ability. They strategically refrain from excessive guitar solos or extravagant vocal elements characteristic of harder rock variants, in favor of a conscientious balancing of carefully crafted guitar licks, patchy yet calculated drumming and subdued lyrical sections. Lead singer Joe Thorpe’s vocals often teeter a fine line somewhere between a wounded croon and tone-deaf speech to produce a brilliant coarseness production of deliberately unadorned feels.
“Tuck” is raw, dark and sounds like something off of Sub Pop’s early years. Here’s to hoping Thoughts can make good on its promise to fill the deficiency of this sound in the current overall rock landscape.
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