Thrice: The Aural Alchemists Transmute Their Sound

words by Ingrid Norton
photos by Victor Yiu

Thrice is one of those bands that it’s useless to classify. They’ve been recording different slants on dark California rock for nearly a decade now, running the gamut from straight up noise-rock to the moody atmospherics of their latest album. To some, Thrice will always be about the noisy post-punk, angst-metal, emo-core (whatever you wanna call it) of their early releases. The loud, abrasive, and fast sounds emanating out of this Irving, California-based band in the early 2000s on albums like Identity Crisis and The Illusion of Safety attracted a loyal cadre of alienated indie kids. Thrice’s next incarnation came with the raw, dark stylizations of 2005’s Vheissu, an unpronounceable title taken from the Thomas Pynchon novel V. The album (dubbed “prog-emo” by Rolling Stone) featured sonic tinkering on a Japanese music box and cover art from Dave Eggers, author of A Heartbreaking Work of a Staggering Genius and darling of the indie publishing collective McSweeney’s. But even amidst the experimenting, they never lost their fan base. Last year, the group played the dark and pointed rock of Vheissu in domed arenas across the country, touring with screeching, gothy bands with names like “As I Lay Dying” and “Every Time I Die.”