The Thermals

The Thermals

Details

The Thermals are scheduled to perform Tuesday, May 26.

The Rhythm Room

Related Content

• Rogue Voodoo Doughnut Bacon Maple Ale
  November 21, 2011
• The Thermals at Rhythm Room Last Night
  November 18, 2010
• Rumspringer: Earnest Trio Builds Up to Nothing on Punk's Ever-Shifting Sands
  November 24, 2011
• The Thermals @ The Rhythm Room
  November 11, 2010
• Top Ten Best You Asked For It Songs
  May 12, 2011

More About

• Portland (Oregon)
• Kathy Foster
• Hutch Harris
• Husker Du
• Punk Rock

Like this Story?

Sign up for the Music Newsletter: Keep your thumb on the local music scene with music features, additional online music listings and show picks. We'll also send special ticket offers and music promotions available only to our Music Newsletter subscribers.

Privacy Policy Cancel Continue

Two things about The Thermals: The Portland, Oregon indie-punk band made its first album, 2003's More Parts Per Million, for approximately $6 (they recorded it at home on six $1 cassettes) and it was released virtually as-is by Sub Pop; and before forming the group, Thermals principals Hutch Harris and Kathy Foster (once boyfriend-girlfriend but not for a very, very long time now) made quirky, semi-acoustic folk-pop under the moniker Hutch and Kathy. The first fact is interesting because even as the Thermals have grown and evolved over four albums — with more money, time, studio access, and ideas at their disposal — their music still retains the raw, desperate, wholly genuine spirit of a couple of kids doing things on the way-cheap in their bedroom just for the absolute love of it. The second fact explains how the Thermals — a power trio that's currently on its fourth drummer — can rage like the punkiest of the punks, with barbed-wire guitars and pummeling rhythms and venomous lyrics about political vampires, cultural wastes, and imagined end times, and still display a proud pop heart in its classic, winning melodies and strangely hopeful-sounding vocals. It's pop punk, less like Green Day and more like Hüsker Dü, and their latest — the loud, passionate, and obscenely catchy Now We Can See (recorded for their new label, Kill Rock Stars) just may be their greatest.