An unfortunate formula for success: Play the same damn music All The Time

Normally, a sophomore album offers a listener one of two things: a wildly unsuccessful attempt at growth, or an impressive, measured growth album. So perhaps that's what makes Thursday's War All The Time remarkable -- it's so damn unremarkable. Compared to their debut Full Collapse, it has a few more impressive moments, but continues the pattern of poor production, lukewarm songwriting and obnoxious vocals. It's the same old genre, too -- post-punk with tiny hints of hardcore and "emo," and not much experimentation or imagination in the margins. As a result, this is an album for anyone who appreciated the band's prior work, but more discerning listeners will continue to find nothing especially new or wonderful here.

To be fair to this album before it gets rightly debunked, its impressive moments are a bit more frequent than its predecessor, which essentially rode on "Cross Out The Eyes" and "Paris In Flames" to cover up a poorly constructed overall effort. Here, we get three or four treats (lucky us!) instead of two. The album opens up with its lead single (there's a move that's never been tried before), entitled "For The Workforce, Drowning." Fortunately, while the track's placement is a tired cliché, the song itself is one of Thursday's better tracks to date. Geoff Rickly handles the melodic vocals breathlessly and passionately, while guitarist Steve Pedulla offers up background vocals that offer up a glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, he stopped to clear his throat before recording this album (this hope is, of course, in vain, but more on that later). The track's instrumentals are also commendable, moving from heavy and pulsating to light and airy several times, hightening the song's dramatic effect. The album's production does not do its dynamics justice at this point, but that's a concession worth making for its better moments. Things continue to look upward as the album flows into "Between Rupture And Rapture," another well-molded tune with some well-placed crunches and stops, where Pedulla offers up some powerful growls in the pre-choruses.

But alas, some good things must end. Metallica proved this as they slowly aged through their career, but at least they gave us five classic albums first. Thursday blows their wad after a few enjoyable tracks, and decays into formulaic, effortless and ultimately boring post-punk. As the album rolls into "Division Street," it's easy to rightfully lose your attention span. Why? Simple -- it's all the same. It's like Saves The Day throwing a temper tantrum over and over and over again. Rickly handles the whining, Pedulla rasps out some horrendously dry-sounding screams, and the band plays unremarkable, poorly produced, simple riffs beneath. Repeat minus the screaming, add a dash of complaining about radio-friendly music, and you would have "Signals In The Air," the track that follows. Repeat with a little bit of instrumental flair, and put the screaming back in (at its very most grating and irritating), and you would have "Marches And Maneuvers." Repeat the sum formula ad nauseum, and you would have the wide majority of the album constructed -- and hell, just by guessing, you might write more engaging tracks than Thursday actually did. And you can probably scream better than Pedulla, too.

To be fair to the band, they resuscitate the album for a few moments, as though they were trying to jolt a little bit of life back into their songwriting process. "This Song Brought To You By A Falling Bomb," whose commentary is approximately as subtle and nuanced as a Vin Diesel movie, is played with an honest dose of passion, and musically, it offers an ear-grabbing change of pace, with a lone piano accompanying Rickly's plaintive vocals. Apparently, good songs with overblown commentary strike in pairs, because the album's last moment of true excitement comes in the form of "War All The Time," a track with a wonderfully calculated musical build, where Rickly actually takes the time to develop a dynamic delivery. The track does lose massive points for incorporating singing children (HINT: Pink Floyd was cool, and smart to boot. You are neither.), but that appearance is brief, and doesn't interrupt the song's slick buildup process too badly.

But generally speaking, War All The Time is a rare sophomore album insofar as it's neither a growth nor an utter failure. It's just more of the same damn thing, and perhaps that's more of a travesty than a predictable sophomore slump could ever have been. Thursday is clearly reaching, and when their songwriting actually reflects time taken to think, re-think and develop, they score some successful moments. But for the most part, they obviously did not do this, and seven of the eleven tracks here pander to cliché over substance and ability. Give this disc a pass.