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Written by Daniel O’Malley Saturday, 26 November 2005 11:24

THRICE: VHEISSU (Island)

Thrice set the bar pretty high for themselves early on. Their album The Illusion of Safety hit the melodic hardcore nail squarely on the head, fusing impassioned, screaming vocals with alternately intricate and bombastic instrumentation. It was no real surprise then when their major label debut The Artist in the Ambulance didn’t quite stack up to their previous effort. The latter may have fared better on the charts—entering at number 16 on the Billboard 200—but that might have more to do with the support Island put behind it than the actual music.

All things considered, recording Vheissu may have been the smartest move Thrice could’ve made right now. Easily their most experimental album to date, Vheissu smashes down all the walls that seemed to bind the group to any straight-ahead hardcore path.

But it’s not as if they’ve abandoned their roots, as some will surely say. The lead single “Image of the Invisible” alone should lay those claims to rest. Elsewhere, Vheissu is peppered with synthesizers and keyboards that add a whole new depth. If Thrice existed in two dimensions before, they’ve now leapt to three or four with a more enveloping, atmospheric sound. The choice of producer Steve Osborne was sound, as parts of Vheissu are reminiscent of another of his projects, Doves—were you to attach jumper cables and give the Englishmen a hefty dose of electricity.

The record’s pitfall is that, at times, the sonic experimentation begins to lose focus and veer dangerously close to self-indulgence. Take the ambient electronic noise of “Atlantic,” for example. But then there are tracks like “Music Box,” a number guitarist Teppei Teranishi arranged around the melody of a cheap Japanese music box he bought on tour. Like much of the album, the song would appear to be dangerous territory for the band, but it’s a surprising success.