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The New Thursday Song is Well Worth the Long Wait

Writer's picture: Jennifer PatinoJennifer Patino

Updated: Apr 12, 2024






My love for the New Jersey based post-hardcore band, Thursday, is well known. I’m a superfan and have been since I first heard them in 2002. I was fortunate enough to finally see them in concert back in January, something I had dreamed about forever, and since then I’ve been hoping for them to release a new album. (You can read about my concert experience HERE if you’d like.) At midnight on April 12th, I sort of got my wish.


It was a complete surprise when I saw the band’s social media pages announce a new track was arriving. “Application For Release From The Dream” was so alluring as a title and I wondered what kind of sound to expect. Would it be a return to the more “screamo” sound of the early aughts or would they sound closer to No Devotion, a side project of members’ Geoff Rickly and Stu Richardson which is more mellow, post-punk electronic rock?


This is the band’s first new release in thirteen years and to me it’s a perfect blend between these two sounds. The lyrics speak so much to the times and the songwriting process was a collaborative effort among Rickly, Richardson, Norman Brannon, Tim Payne, Steve Pedulla, and Tucker Rule. The mixing was obvious to me that it was the creative genius of Stuart Richardson, who is responsible for the production of No Devotion’s albums.



Is there something calling out to me?...


Have we seen enough?...


Please never try to see it through and I’ll try to stay too…


What is life? A spark. What is death? A moment…



The screamed bridge of the song pierces the listener’s emotions and Geoff Rickly’s vocals are superb. The lyric video adds to the song’s ambience and was edited by Rickly’s partner Liza De Guia, who also directed the stellar music video for No Devotion’s “Repeaters”. Thursday says they are now in their “DIY collective era”. Frontman Geoff Rickly says the new song “is a meditation on mortality and the seemingly endless cycle of death and rebirth that we all pass through so many times, even in just one lifetime. It’s also a plea to stay in the living world, even when things are painful.” This theme seems to be a direct response to early Thursday lyrics such as “I don’t want to feel this way forever à la “Understanding in a Car Crash” from the debut album Full Collapse, and the song “Steps Ascending” which states “You can try to understand but I’m giving up.”


“New” Thursday lyrically has the same direct reflections of the world they exist in, but the “kids in the basement” are screaming differently. I feel this song is exactly what we need, especially in the hardcore scene, right now. Does it matter that the sound has evolved? Not to me. I think it fits the band immaculately. I can’t stop playing the new song over and over and smiling as I do. The wait for new music was worth every moment of the past thirteen years because “Application For Release” is the product of that patience.


Rickly has mentioned on his social media platforms that Thursday is a “free band” now, liberated from the confines of record labels and can now become something even more special than it already is. I’m anticipating what’s next. The band has stated they will be releasing more singles (a trend that, due to streaming, is gaining popularity over the release of full albums) and Rickly has also teased the idea that Thursday can become more than a band. Talk of a new record label and a publishing house is making the rounds. Geoff Rickly is an author himself. His auto fiction book “Someone Who Isn’t Me” was the debut release of Rose Books Press last year and is very successful, beloved by both Thursday fans and those who never heard of the band before the book came out.


“Application For Release From The Dream” isn’t just for post-hardcore fans who’ve been with the band since the beginning. I truly believe that its power can be felt by all who give it a listen. You can find it wherever you stream music and I highly recommend watching the lyric video on the band’s YouTube channel.


Follow Thursday on Facebook and Instagram and buy their merch at thursday.net



Jennifer Patino lives in Traverse City and loves music. Visit her blog at thistlethoughts.com 


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