Thus Love were formed in the petri dish of COVID lockdown. Their debut LP, Memorial was recorded in their hastily built home studio in their cramped apartment in Brattleboro, Vermont, and knocked out as they had nothing better to do and they didn’t think anyone would hear it.
But they did. And they loved it.
Then we waited for the next one.
The thing about the clichéd “difficult second album” is that it isn’t that difficult at all. Not if you’re any good, anyway. Think of the list of better second LPs. They’re not getting listed here.
Maybe it’s if you think about it too much. Really dwell on writing the perfect record and fuck it up. Or you don’t try hard enough, you think it’s going to come easy because your first was such a smash. Maybe it’s just when it’s sent from above, appears out of the ether.
Or maybe it’s because they’re just a really really, really, fucking great band.
Thus Love are very much the latter. And to make things even more interesting and potentially difficult, they decided to change half the band. Bassist Nathaniel van Osdel amicably stepped away and in came Ally Juleen to replace them and also Shane Blank to add extra chops on guitar and synths.
Echo Mars is still very much the centre of attention however. A born front person on a stage, the quintessential rock star in making, they ooze charisma and effortless magnetism.
Sometimes there is that je ne sais quoi that adds that bit of magic to a record, and this is sprinkled with it.
Starting with one of the three singles already released, ‘On The Floor’ is an opening manifesto about how you can be taught the wrong way to think about issues and people, as Echo says “it is easy to be complicit in systems of oppression”, seemingly in reference to belief systems and the gender discussion. “Take time to figure out /all these things to unlearn about”. Monoliths of riff flying out hither and yon, harmonised and echoed.
‘Birthday Song’ , an ode to platonic love and friendship. “Do you believe in love?/and all the way it shows”. What sets this record apart from the stupendous debut is the humongous choruses begging to be sung back, nay, yelled back. “I can’t understand/how it’s been so long,but/ we’re still best friends”.
‘Get Stable’ is a more angular affair. Guitars compete rather than complement but to as equally pleasing a result. Lu Racine slaps out a groove and leaves a pin point gap and return.
‘All Pleasure’ the title track and perhaps the biggest pivot in the Thus Love repertoire. Ally adds call to Echo’s response vocals and starts sentences that they then complete. Shane adds even more ginormous bent note hooks. “Look you dead in the eye, never gonna get sick of the line/you’re the love of my life“.
‘Face To Face’ is an utterly stunning sparse and isolated interlude, with Echo alone on the piano. A lament to accepting yourself and not trying to become someone you aren’t. ‘Face to face/I thought I told you once before/it isn’t fair for us to bully ourselves anymore”.
‘Lost In Translation’ is run into like a god given antithesis. Something Thus Love do so well is the snarling, elongated, arching rung out chord and note. As with so many songs, it is as much about what isn’t there as what is, and the space is palpable, allowing vocals and the rhythm section to be as much a star of the show. “Everyone is obsessed with newness/like some kind of curse….I wanna be lost in translation”.
‘Show Me Patience’ has Echo’s starkly different delivery, with more backing vocals from Ally adding another dimension that is more sultry duet. “Show me patience/show me love/show me patient, patient love” a pleading conversation between lovers.
‘House On A Hill’ seems to be about being too busy with life to enjoy the simple pleasures in life. “Anything for convenience/anything for the Gram/there’s no room for/masturbation, uh-uh”. You’ll get booted off for putting pictures of that on there anyway. Let’s say it’s a metaphor, wink wink.
‘Bread For Blood’ has a funk and strut to it, a bit of chic. There’s a bit of Franz Ferdinand about it. On the face of it, there’s the obvious age old killing yourself at work for a minimum wage. Or is it a midnight religious cult, the body and the blood being broken and drunk?!?
The finale of ‘Losing A Friend’ is naturally epic and anthemic, with an edge of melancholy and regret, as only the last song could be. A guitar sound straight from the Keith Murray (We Are Scientists) bank of effects pedals.
This is a rock record for the ages. This age, the next age, the next ice age, any age. It’s a story of unconditional love for whoever you are, whoever you want to be, to love yourself (in everyway) and be seen and accepted.
It’s a form of alchemy that cannot be explained. The universe brought Echo and Lu together when the world shut it’s doors, and then Ally and Shane bowled up and slotted in to place like last pieces of a jigsaw of billions of unfathomable pieces but it made a Thus Love. Twas ever…..
