I’ll probably always remember the time I saw Hella in an 80-degree attic in New Orleans and everybody was drenched in sweat and the only light went out and they kept playing in the pitch black and we all went crazy and felt alive. That’s the kind of experience bands like Hella, and Lightning Bolt, were made for. But I never once had a desire to buy or even listen to Hella’s recorded work. It seems almost like keeping a picture of your lover in your wallet: a nice memento, but not the real thing.
In that regard, I’m certain that Thank You are one of the most exciting live bands around right now. Their manically tense, polyrhythmic, clattering post- punk—like an instrumental, brainier Love Is All—could bring a small house down. But after I send in this review, I doubt I’ll ever listen to Golden Worry ever again. It’s an often thrilling, always impressive flurry of drums and wires, but it’s hard to feel much about it. And, indeed, the music is hardly meant for intimate bedroom listening. Thank You is a communal experience; they belong in the basement. No record could confine them.
