The Thrills -

Five Songs, 10/24/2022

Posted on October 24, 2022 | Joshua Buergel

Screeching Weasel, “My Brain Hurts”

I poke fun at Screeching Weasel pretty often when they come up here, mostly because their formula most didn’t change over the course of a zillion albums. But their early albums are still a lot of fun - just cheerful, energetic punk. There’s nothing at all wrong with this formula when it’s hitting.

Mission of Burma, “That’s When I Reach For My Revolver”

This song is one of the pillars of post-punk, a template for so many following bands. That’s the reason this still sounds fresh more than 40 years later, because it was groundbreaking at the time, and bands still try and sound like this.

Five Songs, 1/14/2021

Posted on January 14, 2021 | Joshua Buergel

Murs, “I’m Innocent”

Murs found himself on Warner Bros for Murs For President, and he turned in a big album to celebrate. There are a lot of ideas, a lot of big beats, a lot of targets. It’s a good record, but it feels like it’s a little much.

Mayhem, “A Wise Birthgiver”

I went a little bit into Mayhem’s history the last time they came up, so I won’t repeat that here. I’ll just reiterate: these were bad people, and even this later version of the band contains folks like Hellhammer who have said terrible things and never really recanted past links to repugnant beliefs. I bought this album unaware of the band’s history outside of Vikernes and Euronymous. Knowing what I now know, I would have avoided it.