Ever since Tradition dropped in January, I’ve been anxiously for new music from Thousand Below. They were kind enough to give us another 3 singles after Tradition, and on Friday their debut album The Love You Let Too Close finally hit stores.
My excitement around this album was so much that I stayed up until midnight for it to release on Spotify, and it was absolutely worth it. Honestly the album is just perfect in every way. Each song is unique enough to hold it’s own, the length is absolutely spot on, neither too short or too long. The balance between clean and unclean vocals is on point throughout. From the instrumentals to the lyrics that hit really close to home, the whole album is just completely amazing.
The standout track is the title track The Love You Let Too Close. Lyrically, this song is brutal as it deals with the suicide of a loved one, and musically it’s the heaviest song on the album. Elsewhere, the album starts hard and fast with Sinking Me, followed by the super catchy lead single Tradition. One thing I look for in post-hardcore bands is songs without any screaming, and they deliver with Carry The Weight, which more than holds it’s own. The order of the tracklist is good too, it feels very cohesive and never feels like it peters out or has distinct sections like some albums tend to. The album closes with Into The Gray, while lacking in vocals for the most part has a very ambient feel similar to Glasslands before closing the album perfectly with a massive scream.
This is the best album of 2017 and one of my favourite of all time, there is absolutely no question. That’s quite an accomplishment for a band that no-one knew existed a year ago.
I’m impatiently waiting for my mega bundle pre-order to arrive (probably gonna be 3 weeks away, pretty standard for Australia) but at least I got the digital download with the pre-order.
August Burns Red and The Ongoing Concept also released new albums on the same day but I’ve barely listened to them as The Love You Let Too Close is just overwhelming good.
You can stream the album through Spotify below