Thursday have been reunited and touring regularly since 2016, and now the post-hardcore alums have unleashed their first new song in 13 years, “Application For Release From the Dream.”
Back in 2017, the band said that “new music will only come if we feel it’s truly inspired and adds a new dimension to the band,” and that’s exactly what “Application” does. It begins by picking up where the atmospheric vibes of their once-final album No Devolución left off, and it brings back the band’s OG screamo love on the song’s ferocious bridge.
Read more: 5 most underrated post-hardcore albums of the 2000s
“Tonight we release our first song in 13 years,” they say. “It’s also our first release in 25 years WITHOUT a record label. That’s 25 years since we set out in a small white van to play basements and VFW Halls — attics, kitchens, and backyards — with a bunch of burned CDRs marked in black Sharpie: ‘Summer Tour ‘99.’ In those 25 years, there were so many highway breakdowns, so many emergency rooms, run-ins with the law. So much time laughing in the studio, so many hours huddled together backstage or loading gear in the rain. And yes, 25 years of legal disputes and public blowouts. But now we are free. Free to make our own mistakes. Free to turn this band into whatever we dream it to be, whether we want to make it a collective of rotating members, a small cottage industry, a publishing house, a record label, or just a group of friends still having fun together after all these years. So tonight we step on stage at a tiny independent venue like we would’ve played when we were releasing Full Collapse (23 years ago this week) or again when we released No Devolucion (13 years ago this week). The kind of place we hope we get to keep playing at for as long as they’ll have us. Because no matter the size of the stages we’ve played in those 25 years, we remain— at heart — a small band, a bunch of kids still screaming in a basement. But we’re your small band and we love you. Thanks for everything.”
As for the potential of “a collective of rotating members,” the lineup on this song is original members Geoff Rickly, Steve Pedulla, Tim Payne, and Tucker Rule, plus touring guitarist Norman Brannon of Texas Is The Reason, who makes his recorded debut with Thursday on this track. It was produced by Thursday’s current touring bassist (and Rickly’s No Devotion bandmate/producer) Stu Richardson.
Listen to “Application For Release From the Dream” below.
