Thrice: Dustin Kensrue rolls back the years
YOU’LL RARELY FIND London’s Kentish Town Forum as packed as it is this evening –a good chance for a support band to make some new fans, then. PALM READER would have been a good fit half a decade ago, but their evolution from their post-hardcore into crushing, expansive postmetal feels like it’s a bit much for a crowd here for some early 2000s emo nostalgia. It’s a shame they receive such a lukewarm reception, particularly as they’ve since announced they’re splitting up. ABird And Its Feathers and Inertia are breathtaking examples of the sonic tension and release Palm Reader excelled at, and they will be missed.
California alt hardcore crew THRICE are celebrating the 20th anniversary of their beloved third album, The Artist In The Ambulance, although it’s actually entering its 21st year at this point. Athey plough straight into Cold Cash And Colder Hearts and Under AKilling Moon, the Forum goes absolutely bananas. It only takes vocalist and guitarist Dustin Kensrue to announce the album title for a roar as loud as a crowd celebrating a last-minute winner in the Champions League final to be bawled back into his face. The singalongs that greet the melodic two-step of All That’s Left or the fistswinging stomp of Paper Tigers add to the atmosphere massively, and help to accentuate the record’s high points.
Some of the album hasn’t aged that well, however. In 2024, the likes of the title track and Stare At The Sun have dated to sound like any of the standard emo fare that saturated the music scene at the start of the millennium. It says a lot that once Thrice have finished the album, the second half of the set, cherry-picking the best moments from the rest of their career, is far more enjoyable.
Noticeably, the band seem far more energised at this point, with the closing three-song encore of the superb Black Honey (from 2016’s more rock-orientated comeback album To Be Everywhere Is To Be Nowhere), and the soaring prog of Of Dust And Nations and The Earth Will Shake from 2005’s Vheissu being the evening’s clear highlight. Nostalgia can be a powerful drug, but this evening it’s more a placebo.