Thistle – tired anchor / 2003 Tiberius Records / 10 Songs / http://www.thistlewired.com / http://www.tiberiusrecords.com /

Fuzzy guitars with cold guitar lines made this disc into one of lost loves, cold winters alone, and a detachment from reality. Splashy drum beats bring the listener into reality, but only for the briefest of times. Strains of Soul Asylum-like vocals cut the distorted guitars and intermesh themselves into the larger piece of art. Intensely personal in sound and lyrics, the emotive force of the disc is summed up best in the magnum opus “Apron Strings”, which brings the sterile environment of a hospital out into song, the “new room, bleached white, bleached clean”. Pulled out of real life experience comes “Water and Rations”, a tale with lyrics that both can indicate that of a military soldier off to fight on some foreign shore or a band member leaving on tour. A change from the two prior releases by thistle would have to the shorter average track time between the two hours; where a song might have lasted over four minutes on the prior recording, chances are that it will have a much more trim and spry run time this time around. As a result, the messages of love and displacement – oceans and deserts, in the language of the disc – are much more noticeable. No one style threatens to dominate “tired anchor”; the slow tempo of “Arched or Bent, Every Cell Gave In” yields to the chaotic timespan of “Repent! Repent!”. Another release by thistle and tiberius records that ensures that the KY/Cincy scene is still kicking, albeit in a slightly different form than many are used to.

Highlight of CD : Repent! Repent!