Album Details

• Artist: Thursday
• Album: Kill The House Lights
• Label: Victory Records
• Year of Release: 2007
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: kev_stev on 2007-11-10

When Thursday released Waiting and Full Collapse, there was a particular rawness and freshness to their sound, filling their music with unrestrained emotion and poignancy.  With War All the Time came a more refined sound, with A City By the Light Divided came a more structured sound, and now with Kill the House Lights comes the end of Thursday's patented post-hardcore sound.  What a mess this CD/DVD package turned out to be--so bad that even a cameo by Tim Kasher cannot salvage anything for the band. 

The following is a review of only the CD:

Thursday has now clearly departed from what has made them successful over the years: their ability to convey exacted empathy and emotions.  The new songs on Kill the House Lights do just the opposite; the sound is forced and distanced, while the lyrics of Geoff Rickley plunge towards uninspired banality.  The opening song demonstrates this, with flagrantly bad lyrics like "Sleeps through the night / Everything is all right / And his teeth are all white / And his face fits the type."  Also, while the screams are just as blood-curdling as they were since the band's inception, the meaning and purpose behind them is lost.  They are, like all the songs released on this package, filler: screaming for the sake of screaming, without emphasis or reason.  

As an avid Thursday fan, I had all of the demos released on Kill the House Lights prior to its relase, so what I paid for was a couple of new, uninspiring, and poorly written songs, along with some bland instrumentals and tracks from live shows (reminscient of the waste of an EP that was Five Stories Falling, an album so blatantly weak that even the band did not endorse it).  Thursday claimed that the release of their EP was solely for monetary purposes of their former label, and from the wonderful timing of this release--right before the holiday season--it would not flabbergast me if the band admitted to taking a similar route. 

Taking a new direction with a band's music is fine.  However, while a band should always be encouraged to push the envelope and experiment, they should never abandon their sound completely; they should never drop the focal point of their music for 2 minute musical interludes.  Evidently, Thursday is desperately lacking inspiration, and until they find this missing link to their sound they should not subject their fans to such mediocrity. 

Therefore, in the midst of my spite and indignation with one of my favorite bands, I leave my readers this well-thought out suggestion and warning: I bought this album; I highly suggest that you do not do the same.

User Reviews and Comments

on 2008-02-20 digitalbath Said:

I liked the way they re-did one song that I don't remember the name of. I agree with the editorial though. Very disappointing in my opinion.
Rating: 5/10

on 2007-12-30 Symphony Said:

Just about everything.As a huge Thursday fan, this didn't disappoint me. I wasn't expecting much from a compilation, though. Maybe my expectations were low.
Rating: 8/10

on 2007-12-30 kev_stev Said:

Not to be a jerk or anything, but what'd you like about it?
Rating: 3/10

on 2007-12-29 Symphony Said:

I liked it.
Rating: 8/10