portland, oregon's the thermals (hutch harris on vocals and guitar; kathy foster on bass and vocals; and westin glass on drums) started making music together in early 2002 just for fun.  soon after, death cab for cutie's ben gibbard discovered them and introduced the band to sub pop records.  in 2003, they released their "no-fi" debut l.p., more parts per million.

i read that the band turned down a $50,000 offer for the right to use their song "it's trivia" in a hummer commercial. hutch commented that "we thought about it for about 15 seconds, maybe...it was a really easy decision.  how could we go on after sound tracking hummer?  it's just so evil."

in 2008, after releasing two additional albums with sub pop, the band left the label and signed with another great pacific northwest record, kill rock stars.  on 07 april 2009, the band released their fourth l.p., now we can see.

click here to listen to their song "when we were alive" or here for their song "returning to the fold".  don't forget, the album cover image always links to sample songs and the band's image to their website.

check back here to find out when the thermals are coming to your town.

as always, please buy this album from your local independent music store by people who know and love music and not from retailers like wal-mart (soulless, globally-homogenizing, community-killers) or i-tunes (albums should be listened to as an entire composition with album cover and liner notes in hand).  incidentally, these two companies sell more music than any other retailer in the united states.  that my friend, bites.