Pitchfork Forkcast: New Music: The Thermals: "Everything Thermals" / "I Might Need to You to Kill" / "Misfit" / "Returning to the Fold" (Daytrotter Session) [MP3s/Streams]

New Music: The Thermals: "Everything Thermals" / "I Might Need to You to Kill" / "Misfit" / "Returning to the Fold" (Daytrotter Session) [MP3s/Streams]

Portland, Ore., punk rockers the Thermals tell Daytrotter they're not a punk band, just (har har) "beardless indie," so um, there goes my opening. In a session recorded live in Daytrotter's Illinois-based studio, the Thermals turn out some fine performances of the three- or four-chord punk-pop, bearded or not, that they consistently do well. Dedicated fans may already know the band's live skills from last year's Insound Tour Support 2.0, but there's plenty here for the unconverted, too. Band theme song "Everything Thermals", from 2003's "No Culture Icons" single, is fun and energetic-- "The Thermals go right to your head/ The Thermals have sex in your bed"-- if pretty undeniably B-side material, while "I Might Need You to Kill" goes into the darker, politically urgent material of The Body, the Blood, the Machine, Pitchfork's #17 album of 2006. The previously unreleased "Misfit" is a cover of influential Portland punk band the Wipers, and it's a tightly wound declaration of outsider status that could pass for a Thermals original (the original can be found on the Wipers' box set). "Returning to the Fold" is a pleading standout from The Body, the Blood, the Machine, and a good sign for what's to come: "This is what our next record is going to sound like, pretty much, I think," the Thermals say.

MP3s/Streams:> The Thermals: Daytrotter Session
[The Body, the Blood, the Machine is out now on Sub Pop]