Customer Reviews

War All the Time

5 star:		(159)
4 star:		(37)
3 star:		(16)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

I have a tried and true theory about emo music which I like to call the "Rule of 3". Now, there are exceptions, but most of the time, the Rule of 3 helps you to separate the special bands from the generic ones based off just the first two or three albums. Here's how it works:

1st album: A new emo band comes onto the scene, their first album is just absolutely amazing and is regarded as their best work, or even a masterpiece.

2nd album: The elements that made the first album so great seem to be lacking here, but the sophomore release is still alright in some ways.

3rd album: The fire has dimmed, and what you get is "just another emo band" that is nothing too different from all the others.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love bands such as Taking Back Sunday and The Used, but with the direction they are going, they are looking to becoming just another victim of the Rule of 3. Same with the band Rufio.

Now, this rule does get broken, and THAT's where we discover the best of the best. Bands that dare to let the flame keep burning, bands that dare to keep making better and better music. Bands like Jimmy Eat World, My Chemical Romance.....and Thursday.

Waiting was a solid debut, but the future of this band was still unsure. They managed to tap into most of the elements of success, but then Full Collapse was released and Thursday showed that they are serious about this, that they are aware of the talent they possess. War All The Time is an utter masterpiece, and Thursday have once again outdone themselves. This is the future, people. THIS is music.

Ok, let me find a way to put this in simple words...This album is important, revolutionary, and powerful. It is important that you hear this, and that own it. "War All the Time" is a album that everyone should hear, and that everyone should own. Just like albums as perfect as Refused "Shape of Punk to Come" or Jimmy Eat World "Clarity", or Thursday "Full Colapse" (yes, they are that good to have made 2 perfect albums). War should be heard and should be cherished. It is one of the best albums written in the past ten years, and is just a powerful, moving, important record. It has the power to change lives and is a true piece of art. My nomination for album of the year. Thursday is an important band, a band that everyone should listen to and that should never stop making music. Buy this album, and go see Thursday live. Best live band I've ever seen, you will be shocked at how good they are live.

*Normally I wouldn't judge each song for an album review, but this album deserves it. Thank you Thursday.

For the Workforce Drowning - What an opener. A strong, heavy catchy song that could serve as a single or as a new fan favorite. Truly amazing, especially near the end. Wow. 10/10

Between Rupture and Rapture - heavy, but pretty forgettable. Don't get me wrong, even though I say it's forgettable, it's still really really good. 7/10

Division St. - Best song on the CD, heavy, powerful, amazing. I'll change my mind half way through this review, but right now it's the best on the CD. 10/10

Signals Over The Air - I thought this song was a little weak the first few times I heard it, but it's grown on me, and it's amazing. A great, straight forward catchy song. 10/10

Marches and Maneuvers - Very heavy, not a standout song but a very solid heavy song to add to their ever growing catalog. 8/10

Asleep in the chapel - The most amazing song on the album, so divers, so well written, so moving and powerful. The way Geoff sings hallelujah and oh lord will you save us is the eeriest and most powerful thing I've heard on a Thursday record. I cried the first time I heard it, it was that moving (to me at least). The lyrics and music combine perfectly to create the ideal atmosphere for the song, really moving and powerful. 10/10

This Song Brought to You by a Falling Bomb - A piano ballad?!? On a Thursday record??! Yes, it's true, and it's beautiful. A surprisingly good fit on this album. I swear this band can make anything work. 9/10

Steps Ascending - A sleeper as far as I'm concerned, a very strong very intricate track that I feel will be overlooked. Don't overlook this song, it's amazing. 10/10

War All the Time - This is the strongest track along with Asleep in the Chapel. This song is so perfect, it's indescribable. A truly eerie song, that creates a very dark hopeless mood. Melodic in the way Thursday songs are melodic, this song is another testament to how truly talented these guys are. 10/10

M. Shepard - Heavy, but a little forgettable, I don't know why. It's amazing; it would be the best track on almost any other bands album, with Thursday it's like the fifth best song or so on the album. 8/10

Tomorrow I'll Be You - Another very strong heavy fast song. This band amazes me, a new classic Thursday song. 10/10

I'll just say, this album is stunning. I have always been impressed with Thrusday, but upon first full listen of WATT I fell in love. The music is harder, yet more melodic and harmonic, the mood it sets is a poisoned, rotting city, adn the lyrics are what wins me over. Thurwsdya has inspired me beyond belief. This CD is emo, but not the regular kind, not songs about fights over a girl, but about betrayal, the blessing and curse of love, and crumbling naiton of America.

For The Workforce, Drowning-10: Great intro, urgent feel, great guitar, and greatly benefited by the use of keyboards on this Thursday album. The lyrics are some of the best. "Memos swim throguh the current, computers spark like flares,I can see them, they don't touch me, touch me." A song about the prison thats everyday adult life, everyday being the same, and being near brainwashed by our jobs.

Between Rupture and Rapture-6: Good guiatr, not one of my favorites, but it grows on me.

Division St.-8: A new direction for Thusday. Heavy music with lots of melodies, a tragic song about betrayal of singer Geoff Rickley's friend, who he turned away from after discovering they were on heavy drugs, and was stabbed in the leg.

Signals Over The Air-9: First single of this cd, which pulled me in from the first listen on FUSE. People have said this song is about Geoff complaining Thursday doesnt get enough play-time. WRONG. "They stole the love from our lives and put the sex on the radio." This song is about the commercilazation of sex. Magazines have horrible articles on covers, for all to see, such as "25 sex tips to blow you away, try #17 tonight." The human race is sick with lust.

Marches and Manuevers-6: A song about the despair of war, and how it holds no glory.

Asleep in The Chapel-10: Awesome song with great guitar, lyrics questioning faith. Taking from Nero, the roman emperor. "Since we can't compete with modern saints, we douse ourselves in gasoline, and hang our bodies from the street lamps." Great.

This Song Bought To You By A Falling Bomb-10: This is not like any other Thrusdya songs. Just piano and Geoff, lyrics about solitude and depression, and facing the world in times of trial.

Steps Ascending-10: A heartbreaking song. Geff gets in a fight with a best friend. Before he can apoligize, which he fully intends too, the friend is shot and killed. Lyrics bought tears to me eyes. "I ran down the stars and in to the garden and thrust my hands into the soil, in the spring you will bloom like her heart through the blouse in the back of the ambulance, as it turned and turned down the stree, one mroe time would you come back to me, as it turned, its red lights you were turning into red roses.

War All The Time-10: Beautiful. A song about the wars fought everyday,all the time, not between armies and soldiers and nations, but family members, friends, and lovers. And the dying shadow of America.

M.Shepard-8: Great song, thanking Matthew Shepard and Marvin Gaye for their homosexuality, giving rights to gays. Love is love.

Tommorow I'll Be You-10:If TBS hadn't written Slodance on The Inside, this would be my all time favorite song, but there tied. Amazing. I cried. I love it. A man is sick. He has been told and told that he will be healed on New Year's Day, btu whn it come she still is fatigued from sickness, and keep telling himself it is a bad dream. And then he is cured. I fell in love.

I know I'm late with this, but nevertheless, buy this cd. Thursday is currently writing a follow up to WATT, due out in Fall 2005. All hail Thursday.

Take The Cure, throw in some Refused, supply a dash of At The Drive-In, add in sheer genius songwriting ability and a sound all their own, and you get the final product: Thursday.

War All The Time is Thursday's 3rd full length, and their first album recorded with major record label Island Records. Does this mean they "sold out"? Anything but that. It's just a shame Thursday are grouped with such garbage as Taking Back Sunday or Story of the Year, when they should be grouped with musical legends such as The Doors or Pink Floyd.

With this release, Thursday express their energy, musical talent and songwriting ability in an immensely strong fashion never heard nor seen before. From the crashing instrumentals and yelled vocals portrayed in the first track, "For the Workforce, Drowning," to the soft, piano ballad "This Song Brought To You By a Falling Bomb," to "Tomorrow I'll be You," where vocalist Geoff Rickly proclaims "We Are Cured," Thursday amaze me with how much heart and soul is put into this music, and show me that they truly love and care for what they're doing.

Probably the biggest factor that makes me a fan of Thursday and this album is the deep, personal meanings in the songs and how well the band presents them in a lyrical sense. It's like listening to an autobiography about Geoff's life through song. The title track "War All the Time" is a great example of this, as Rickly explains growing up in New Jersey while comparing it to a war and how America is slowly falling apart. To quote from the song, "War all the time, in the shadow of the New York skyline we grew up too fast, now we're falling apart, like the ashes of American flags."

Then there's the track "M. Shepard" which is dedicated to both Marvin Gaye and Matthew Shepard pertaining to their homosexuality, and peoples' differences in the human race in general, and how people in today's society are ridiculed for being different. And finally, "Steps Ascending," in which Rickly writes about one of his close friends whom he got into a fight with, and before they ever made up and became friends again, his friend was shot in the head and killed. This track also features, at about 2:40 in, the most beautiful pieces of music I've ever heard. Jonah from OneLineDrawing even lends in a part in the vocals. It's simply breathtaking, and has to be heard to be believed.

Thursday are currently working on their new album due out at the end of this year, and I'll be at the store to purchase it the day it comes out. If they can top this or any of their other albums, OR can even come close to it, it will be a modern day masterpiece.

Edit: Just to add, anyone who gives this album a one or two star review, calls this "emo," etc. is an absolute moron.

Personally, I love Taking Back Sunday, Senses Fail and Jimmy Eat World but all they sing about is girls and life. Thursday things about things that will never cross your mind. At times I have no idea what they are even referring to but it makes me think. The lyrics are great, the music is awesome and its different. This is what music is all about, innovation.

One of my many complaints about modern day rock is that often the only kind of bands you can find is the sickeningly soft and intelligent or the inanely loud and mindnumbing. Of course there are exceptions, and both of those types can be good. But I was very much looking for something new, something better. Thursday caught my interest with Full Collapse, a seemingly intelligent record overrun by screams in all the wrong places. Still, it was a better than average album, so i kept my eye on them. Then they put out War All the Time. To listen to the music itself, it is loud, fast, uplifting, with breakdowns and yells and anthemic beats all over the place. It is nice to listen to. Then i took out the lyric book one night and read through it, joyed to see that none of the intelligence had been lost and in fact, it was so coherent and mind-shattering, that i fell in love with it immediately. Then the next night, i put the cd in, took out the lyric book, and settled myself in for an experience. It has become one of my favorite albums by any in the emo/screamo/light metal genre. It is both hard and intelligent. This album, if given the due that it deserves, will transcend the decades and become one of the great albums for the future

Normally i do not enjoy emo music, i normally listen to Mars Volta, At the Drive-in, Weezer, Placebo, and other alternative bands. But befor i was into that music, i listened to punk, i bought this album two years ago, but i only listened to it once because it wasnt "PUNK" enough. Just a few days ago when perusing through my vast cd collection, i happenened to spot thursday war all the time, and i decided to pop it into my stereo. After listening to the first track i thought thats pretty good, so i listened to the next track, and the next and etc. now im hooked. Like i said i normally dont listen to emo music, in fact this and Taking Back Sunday are the only to emo albums i own, but i always found TBC to get boring, i never felt that with Thursday. And the screaming, i normally i hate screaming, but the way it was mixed upon this album was great, the screaming was in the background, as opposed to being as loud as the lead vocals (which were great) I also believe that the lyrics on this album are amazing particulary on the last track. In conclusion i believe, that even if you hate emo, you should give thursday a chance you will pleasantly surprised

When a band decides to incorporate scream vocals into their music, it can be either a really good thing, or a really bad thing. Talnented bands like Thursday can use scream vocals to help make their music more powerful and emotional, but 95% of the bands in "HxC" cannot. I HATE HATE HATE hardcore music, but Thursday is my only exception to that longstanding rule. I seriously think that there never has been, and never will never be, a band as good as them in their genre (and believe me, I've heard it all). Overall, I feel like "war all the time" is musically the bands best record. The lyrics, however, were slightly worse than "full colapse" (which held the epic "cross out the eyes"). This band is going somewhere, and I'd highly recommend both this record and their previous one. The best 12 bucks I ever spent on a cd.

THIS IS A 4.5 STAR REVIEW

The only reason I give this 4.5 stars is because it is not as good as Full Collapse. Thursday is very easily my favorite band. This is by far one the most lyrically acommplished bands to ever have been placed on the earth. This album is full of good songs, but there just isn't as much intensity on this album. Although I definately don't see anything wrong with a band changing it up, Full Collapse just sat with me a little better. Great songs on this album are: "For the Work Force Drowning", "Division Street", "Marches and Manuvers","Steps Ascending", and "Tomorrow I'll Be You". Anyone who wants to listen to some amazing music must pick up everything that Thursday has done.

I am EAGERLY awaiting the next release

Thursday has always been known for those hard hitting punk-rock beats and up-tempo guitar lines, but in this album they completely turn on their heads and make one killer sound. The songs come from the heart, not from the start. The best track is by far war all the time, which has the most emotion of any song ever. The guitars are almost begging you to cry and the vocals are precise and permanent upon your mind. When they play this song live they never have gone without crying, trust me, i have seen them live 30+ times. This band is great, just like the predesers The Dresden Dolls and My Chemical Romance. A completely amazing Album!