Getting ready to hit the road in support of last year’s moving release Stage Four, we asked post-hardcore maestros Touché Amoré possibly the toughest question yet – to come up with their all-time favorite tracks from tourmates Thursday.
With the recent reunion and tour announcement from the iconic New Jersey outfit, we thought it’d be fun to take a trip down memory lane and celebrate some of Thursday’s biggest and most under-rated tracks as picked by Touché’s Nick Steinhardt, Tyler Kirby, Jeremy Bolm and Clayton Stevens.
To check out which songs the band picked as their favorites, be sure to look below. Afterwards, if you haven’t already, make sure to pick up tickets to see Thursday and Touché Amoré alongside Basement and, on select dates, Wax Idols and Cities Aviv here.
Nick Steinhardt
One of the best ambient tracks of all time, in my opinion. Wish it was 36 minutes instead of 36 seconds. A project I started called WIFE was partially inspired by this song and this notion - take an amazing soothing ambient passage and repeat/build infinitely on loop.
Found out about quite a few bands via a “cool kid” in high school that made fun of my taste in music. As far as my knowledge of punk sub-genres went, at this point, I knew barely a thing past Punk-O-Rama/Drive-Thru Records compilations. It took awhile for me to get into bands that screamed – AFI, then Poison The Well shortly after blew that door wide open. Aforementioned 15-year-old music snob/bully was wearing a Thursday shirt one day so I figured I’d give it a listen and I was hooked. I knew so little about this type of music I assumed the background vocals in the verses of “Understanding” HAD to be Jeff from PTW.
Tyler Kirby
I hadn’t really ever listened to Thursday prior to touring with them in 2009. I can clearly remember them sound checking with this and being won over by them as a band. A fantastic bassline running throughout.
Jeremy Bolm
I got a copy of Full Collapse around the time of its release after already hearing “Understanding in a Car Crash” and “Cross Out the Eyes” from Victory Records samplers. Those songs secured my excitement for the album. When I put it on, I skipped to track three as “Understanding..” opened the record (after an intro track) as I already knew it so well and was hungry for the songs I hadn’t heard. “Concealer” was a gut punch. The break with the dueling sing/scream vocals of “If you wanted to change the way I look at you” just absolutely crushed me. The voice cracking and rawness of that entire part to this day still gives me goosebumps. A high point of my life was getting to sing it with them in New Jersey in 2011.
Thursday’s album A City By The Light Divided is full of incredible moments. One, in particular, is this song. It introduces a level of melancholy left unexplored by Thursday till this point. It’s inspiring as well heartbreaking. With a sound comparable to Sigur Ros as a post-hardcore band, it twists and turns and builds in ways that leave you feeling vulnerable.
Clayton Stevens
There’s not a lot that can be said about this song that hasn’t been said already by anyone who is familiar with Thursday. This is the song that turned me onto them. Raw, emotional, and absolutely pivotal for any fan of screamo.
A standout track from Thursday’s under appreciated final effort No Devolución. Haunting is the only word I can use to describe its mood. Near the end of the song the band crescendos, yet Geoff stays right where he started. Everything around him gets bigger and bigger but he lets you hear his vulnerability.
