The Understated Genius of Fred Thomas

I’ve been listening to Fred Thomas for almost two decades in some fashion or another, and while I always appreciated his work in Saturday Looks Good to Me (and His Name is Alive), his growth under his own name has been pretty spectacular. His 2017 album, Changer, might just be one of my favorite pop records of the last 10 years. Today we get the first listen to new stuff from the forthcoming Aftering. I love how the piano works just behind the trickling piano, laying the groundwork for a crashing guitar that delivers an emphatic pop punch to the face. His voice helps land the track in the vein of Nada Surf, especially with the way he polishes off syllables with melody. The new LP is out on September 14th via Polyvinyl, surely looking down at the rest of those pop imitators.