Fast earning a reputation as “your favourite musician’s favourite musicians,” Thank have gained momentum for their unique concoction of anxious disco grooves, harsh noise freak-outs and inscrutable sprechgesang bluster – a legacy continued on their forthcoming new album I Have A Physical Body That Can Be Harmed.
Earlier this year, Thank signed to the independent record label Big Scary Monsters, quickly following the news of the signing with the release of the well-received ‘Writing Out A List Of All The Names Of God’ and a performance in a packed tent at ArcTanGent Festival, with further shows scheduled in the UK and Europe for the rest of the year.
We thought it was about time we found out what kind of music feeds these lads form Leeds, so we asked vocalist Freddy Vinehill-Cliffe to choose four records that have majorly influenced the Thank’s music.
No Trend – Tritonian Nash-Vegas Polyester Complex
People generally only talk about Too Many Humans, but this later album is so bizarre and singular. It sounds like Flipper trying to make a Steely Dan record. I think it’s a really cool testament to how far off-piste you can go, and still wind up making something that sounds like “you”. You can pull in a bunch of session musicians and put together these daft yacht-rock arrangements, but if you’re an ugly, misanthropic punk band then you’re gonna make an ugly, misanthropic punk record regardless. In our case I guess that means we’re gonna make a goofy noise-rock record even if we set out to make Songs From The Big Chair.
Tears For Fears – Songs From The Big Chair
Speaking of which, there was a period of a few months just after we finished Thoughtless Cruelty where I was convinced that our next album needed to sound exactly like Songs From The Big Chair. That didn’t last long, but I think you can hear remnants of it; in particular there’s a song where we borrow pretty heavily from ‘Shout’. It would be easy to lump together Tears For Fears with a lot of unremarkable pop music from the same era, but to me it has way more in common with something like Discipline or Remain In Light. it’s kind of a sleeper prog record.
Cerce – Cerce 7-inch
To me, this 7-inch is as important for hardcore as any of the early SST or Dischord releases. The original incarnation of this band was around for such a short time but it felt like everyone even remotely interested in punk was enthralled, I guess at least partly because they hit a sweet spot where Facebook was still at its peak and Bandcamp was just starting to come into its own. Of course, I’m delighted that Cerce reunited almost a decade later to release new music, but nothing hits quite as hard as this properly feral sounding 7-inch.
Damn Teeth – Damn Teeth
I’m not sure that any of the members of Damn Teeth themselves even like this record, but it was a huge one for me. The first DIY show I put on after I moved to Leeds was Damn Teeth touring this album and it was objectively an absolute disaster, but we became great friends. This album made me completely rethink how synths could fit into noise rock, which I’m sure you’ll agree is very INTERESTING and CURIOUS considering we formed Thank like six months after it came out.
Thank‘s second album, I Have A Physical Body That Can Be Harmed releases November 8 2024 via Big Scary Monsters and can be pre-ordered HERE
Thank are on tour this autumn starting October 16 at the New Cross Inn, London.
