After departing from a major label a little over a month ago, their completed concept albums, The Alchemy Index in hand, it was unsure where Thrice, and their four-disc exploration of the elements, would end up. Wonder no more, as they've gone indie, and will be releasing the first two discs this autumn.
The band has signed with Vagrant Records, rather than another major label, as many people speculated they would. However, instead of releasing all four discs at once, they have decided to release The Alchemy Index: Volume 1 & II: Fire & Water on October 16th. Volume III & Volume IV: Earth & Air will be out in the spring.
Vagrant's press release concerning the signing and the albums read, in part:
Stretching their innovation even further Thrice’s, Dustin Kensrue, Teppei Teranishi, Riley Breckenridge & Ed Breckenridge, expressed their musical diversity resulting in their most stunning effort to date. The Alchemy Index is an uncompromising artistic collection that represents the band’s evolution and shatters conventional boundaries. This quartet prides themselves on continually pushing the envelope creating the dynamic sound they call their own. It is this equilibrium that helps the band develop such richly crafted tracks and in doing so, it raises the bar once again for all that follow.
I think it's interesting that the band went to an indie, rather than back to a major label. Perhaps it's a sign of the times, or perhaps this project is too ambitious for the money-obsessed labels. Call me crazy -- and maybe the band will prove me wrong -- it seems like this may not be the best thought-out project in the history of the world.
And while I realize Thrice fans everywhere are ready to re-enct scenes from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre on me, let's think about this rationally. How often do multi-disc sets really succeed? Don't they usually suffer from excess and bloat, leaving people saying, "if they had only done one album... this would have been the best album ever..."? And well, let's be honest. While Thrice is a rather varied and innovative, trying to have Coheed and Cambria's entire career over the course of a four-disc concept album may not be the best idea....
