The Thermals have shaved off the first listen from their forthcoming sixth studio album, Desperate Ground, due out April 16th via Saddle Creek. As promised, the latest offering scales back to the band’s grittier days — specifically, 2003’s More Parts Per Million, 2004’s Fuckin’ A, and 2006’s The Body, the Blood, the Machine — when the stories were snarky and vocalist Hutch Harris essentially sang through a screen door. That’s made all the more obvious on the bleak, ballsy album opener “Born to Kill”.
“To me, the whole journey of the record was more about someone learning to deal with the harsh reality around them,” Harris explains of the track to Spin. “I wanted to start with someone who was fighting for freedom and fighting for their family, someone who doesn’t enjoy killing but is doing it because it’s necessary.”
Find the stream below and consult the album’s tracklist and accompanying tour dates shortly after.
Desperate Ground Tracklist:
01. Born to Kill
02. You Will Be Free
03. The Sunset
04. I Go Alone
05. The Sword By My Side
06. You Will Find Me
07. Faces Stay With Me
08. The Howl of the Winds
09. Where I Stand
10. Our Love Survives
The Thermals 2013 Tour Dates:
03/01 – San Francisco, CA @ Noise Pop (Rickshaw Stop)
03/02 – Cupertino, CA @ Homestead Lanes Bowling Alley
03/07 – Brooklyn, NY @ 285 Kent
03/08 – Clinton, NY @ Beinekie Events Barn @ Hamilton College
03/09 – Hoboken, NJ @ Maxwell’s
03/13-16 – Austin, TX @ SXSW
03/18 – Los Angeles, CA @ Check Yo Ponytail at Echoplex
03/20 – Portland, OR @ Branx
03/25 – Seattle, WA @ Neumos
