Remember those words from The Thermals' 2004 sophomore record, Fuckin'A -- Hutch Harris singing, "Pray for a new age / pray for assassination?" Remember the aural double take, rewinding the track, in order to make sure that you had heard the thing correctly the first time? Use that as your jumping off point for The Body, The Blood, The Machine, the utter lack of subtlety with which Harris executes his glut of songs, half protest numbers and half sheer musical catharsis (there's a thin line here, and rightfully so) -- and loudly thank God for it. Subtlety is dead, at least on the other side, and it's near impossible to fight the rhetoric of ?you're either with us, or against us' with a thickly-veiled, clever turns of phrase.

"God reached his hand / down from the sky / he flooded the land / then he set it afire. / He said, ?fear me again, / know I'm your father. / Remember that no one / can breathe underwater.'" Thus begins the third Thermals record, the continuation of a proud tradition for the Portland, Ore. trio, putting out a new record every year or two, and becoming progressively less metaphorical and just generally more epic. Out of the DIY kitchen recording studio, and into the hell fire, the kind of musical kick in the ass we need every once in while, in this post-Sum 41 days, to remind us what punk (at least in theory) was all about: being loudly musical, and vocally angry.

The afore-quoted opening track, "Here's to Your Future" and its follow up, "I Might Need to Kill for You," coupled with the collaged album art -- that cover art image of Jesus praising the (post?) apocalyptic ruins of planet earth, followed by the second page, featuring Moses at the National Mall, presenting the ten commandments the steps of the Capitol building -- evoke a similar sense of irony with regards to the mixing religion and politics as Woody Guthrie's "Christ for President." Where Guthrie suggests Jesus for the task of casting the money lenders out of the White House, Harris asks for a sea-parting, to flee from those who, "pound you with the love of Jesus."

Even those tracks that don't seem to immediately play upon the album's central themes seem to contain some trace element of them below the surface, to prove either that we just read into things way too much, in our attempts to reconcile the unit into a cohesive whole (are the words ?concept album' a bit too imposing?), or that, for all of the band's in-your-face tendencies, it's still capable of executing euphemistic commentary. At face value, "St. Rosa and the Swallows" uses the annual migration of swallows from South America to southern California's San Juan Capistrano as means of conveying the pains of distance between lovers. The immediate religious imagery is, of course, quite clear. Saint Rose is the patron saint of Latin America (the winter home of the swallows). However, the idea of migration also applies to the text on the final page of the liner notes, which reads, "ATTENTION ESCAPISTS!!! Now's the time. Take a power. Skip the country. Run away," (with much of the remainder of the document edited out, bold black line, FBI-style). The concept of jumping ship in the face of political crises is nothing new, but has certainly made quite a comeback in recent years.

"Returning to the Fold" is about as close as The Body, The Blood, The Machine comes to a straightforward pop song. The track is a relatively lighthearted take on the concept of resurrection: "Wait -- / I regret leaving my soul. / I forgot I needed it to feel. / (And maybe when I die) / I'll just grab it real quick. / I'm coming right back." Built around a fairly simple riff and solos that come straight out of the Ric Ocasek playbook, the song would be the number one contender, should the band start pushing for commercial airplay, though Harris's still unpolished vocals will likely remain a roadblock to that route.

Musically, the record follows the lead of Fuckin' A, broadening the band's scope a touch, while managing to stay true to the distorted rapid-fire strummed punk, accented by the heavy drum beats, and constant lyrical repetition, laid out by the band's first EP. "Test Pattern" slows things down a bit, with its "Be My Baby"-esque beat, but the band, it seems, has way too much pent up energy to dwell on balladry for any longer than three-and-a-half minutes.

"I Hold the Sound" closes the proceedings on a cryptic note, both apocalyptic ("The sun is cold. / The world is over"), and positive ("We can walk now. / We can breath."), and ultimately, perhaps a testament to the idea that maybe this machine might be capable of killing fascists, after all ("I hold you. / I hold the sound"). And then, once the words are over, we are left with just the bass and guitar, and finally the whole thing further devolving into a pool of noise, the fire and brimstone in the mirror of the car, on the album's back cover. Perhaps it is possible to get away, after all.

Like it predecessors, The Body, The Blood, The Machine is a triumph throughout, and is simultaneously, if rather contradictorily, the sound of a band becoming more complex, while stripping away the excess baggage. It's the way that punk ought to sound in the year 2006, intelligent, uncompromising and really fucking pissed off.