Readers looking for shyer-than-thou twee indiepop or refined intelligent singer-songwriting should probably leave now. But then, if you’re that kind of music junkie, you were probably already put off by the name. Or the album cover. Or the album title, for that matter. This is not clever, but it is big. In fact, it’s fucking massive. Listening on your pathetic earbuds does it little justice: Thriller needs to be played on speakers, and LOUD speakers at that.
Thriller is an epic slab of rock, all beastly drop-D riffage and dumb titles (see “Super Moody” and “Starpiss”). From the first beat, it takes no prisoners, “Trad” exploding with an ear-buggering immensity that really warrants a warning on the cover. The listener immediately struggles to find the boundaries between where one song ends and the next begins, which only enhances the album’s epic nature: the songs feel more like movements of a grand whole than individual thoughts.
At the album’s centre (of sorts) is the quasi-trilogy of “Tomorrow Midnite”, “Today 2″ and “Today 3″. Here the recurring details and musical themes are at their most magnified, and at times it’s difficult to tell where they will end (or if you even want them to). Thereafter, the album enters an introspective-feeling passage with “Super Moody”, brought to an abrupt halt as the song crashes into an almighty rack.
Sometimes, Thriller can leave you wanting for a bit of space in amongst the instruments; more separation to allow the individual’s style to shine through, as opposed to one congealed, bone-crushing mass. But that’s missing the point, really: This is taught, heavy, dumb-in-a-deceptively-clever-kinda-way rock music, of the kind that Part Chimp do better than most.
Our Verdict:
Andrew Hill is a freelance music journalist and guitarist for Edinburgh band Sellotape. 
