It’s probably fair to claim that most indie punk trios, especially those operating outside of traditional culture hubs, rarely find themselves the subjects of mass hype or anticipation from influential media outlets and a widespread fanbase. Now eight years into their career, that’s exactly what Portland’s The Thermals were faced with prior to latest effort, Now We Can See.

"The expectations didn’t weigh us down but it was still a challenge," claims singer Hutch Harris, despite every scrap of information pertaining to the album making headlines on Pitchfork through to personal blogs. "There was so much respect for the last one – especially for the lyrics. I just thought the lyrics had to be perfect. I would rewrite and rewrite and just hope I’d know when it was done."

Though previous effort The Body, The Blood, The Machine was ostensibly a concept album organised around the idea of a fascist America ruled by fundamentalist Christians, the lyrics themselves were more obtuse and poetic and the music more unassuming than these grand ideas would suggest. Although it echoes his desire to match the lyrical depths of his previous effort, Hutch claims that returning to similarly grand thematic designs was largely unplanned.

"I feel that there’s an honesty in it not being premeditated. You can’t say to yourself that you’re going to write a concept record about church and state and fascism." With both albums, the core ‘concept’ was simply stumbled upon and inadvertently grew to inhabit all of his lyrical concerns at the time.

"We hadn’t set out to make a political record but I wrote Here’s Your Future and I thought I had a lot more to say. Same thing happened on this record – I didn’t sit down to write from the point of view of the dead but I wrote When We Were Alive and it just opened up this door."

In other words, don’t turn to The Thermals for ruminations on or soothing for your hangovers or heartache – unless your idea of soothing is being reminded of your mortality. What exactly is it that attracts the band to such dense subject matter? "Religion and death are kind of always in the back of our minds. The songs require a certain amount of energy and passion in the delivery so if I’m going to sing that way then the lyrics need to be about something that’s important to me."

New fans may be shocked to learn of the band’s more lo-fi, punk-y roots, but the cleaner sound exhibited on Now We Can See is merely a refinement of the strong pop sensibility on which the band always operated rather than a bid to encourage their growing fanbase.

"We’ve always had that poppy side – we don’t want to get stuck doing the same thing so it’s natural to explore prettier songs. I think we’re trying to refine what we’ve done in the past, staying the same but trying to grow in small ways on each record."

NOW WE CAN SEE is out now through Kill Rock Stars/Stomp. www.myspace.com/thethermals

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