Sub Pop
2004
F**kin A
About This Album
With a title that's as much a call to arms as a call to rock out, the Thermals' F**kin A offers a darker, more developed version of the passionate, in-the-red indie rock of their debut, More Parts Per Million. The most immediately noticeable difference between the two albums is the sound quality: instead of recording most of the songs to a cassette player in Hutch Harris' kitchen, as the band did with their first album, this time the Thermals spent four days in a more traditional studio with friend/producer/Death Cab for Cutie guitarist/organist Chris Walla. The result is an album that sounds cleaner but still keeps most of the band's ramshackle energy. However, the Thermals have different reasons to sound urgent on F**kin A than they did on More Parts Per Million; though that album's "No Culture Icons" tackled the politics of the indie scene, much of F**kin A is just straight-up political, a response to the war in Iraq and other events in America and in the world that transpired after their debut was released. The switch to a moderately cleaner sound for this album pays off well in this regard, if only because it's easier to hear Harris' smart, talky lyrics with a few layers of static stripped from them.
Track List (try tracks 3,4,6 and 8)

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