Thursday’s second comeback single “White Bikes” brings emo nostalgia into the future
Back in April, Thursday closed a 13-year-long gap of no music with their new single “Application For Release From the Dream.” The stakes were very high, because in addition to anticipation building for over a decade, Thursday always said they wouldn’t release new music unless they felt it was “truly inspired and adds a new dimension to the band.” “Application” fulfilled that promise and then some, and now Thursday are back with a second new single, “White Bikes,” that’s just as instantly-satisfying. The band says the song was born from an idea that former Texas Is The Reason guitarist Norman Brannon (who started touring with Thursday in 2021) came up with, and it has echoes of the shimmering ’90s emo vibes that Texas helped pioneer and that Thursday helped take into the new millennium on Full Collapse and War All the Time, but also with some percussive, new-wavey guitars and the kind of rich, soaring vocal delivery from Geoff Rickly that he adopted in Thursday’s later years. There’s some nostalgic value for longtime Thursday fans in there, but this is a song that meets the moment and sounds like a step forward.
The band’s full statement on “White Bikes” reads:
SURPRISE! We’ve been blown away by your support this year: you’ve bought our merch, come to our shows, streamed our music. In April we dropped our first song in over a decade. Then in June we had the opportunity to spend some time at @hansastudios in Berlin, where David Bowie wrote and recorded Heroes, where Nick Cave, Iggy Pop, Depeche Mode and REM all made history. There are still magical places left in this world and Hansa is one of them. The result of this session — a song called White Bikes and a @duranite / @gotobednickscholey video documenting our time in Berlin — will start to appear online as the clock strikes midnight around the world tonight / tomorrow morning. Twenty five years to the day that we unveiled our first ever song, we are sharing our newest one. This is our gift to you this holiday season. We hope you love it as much as we do. White Bikes started with an idea from @normanbrannon , and you can hear his distinctive style all over this song. @stu_richardson had the idea to produce the track like a nostalgic, upbeat, summertime version of War All the Time. Geoff told us that the lyrics deal with the loss of a dear friend — one of the first people he ever played music with — who disappeared one day on his bike. This one means a lot to us for a lot of different reasons. We have no record label, we have no ‘team’ behind this. But we have each and every one of you and that is all we’ve ever really needed in these 25 years… White Bikes on the side of the road.
Stream “White Bikes” and watch the video below. Also of note: in addition to all those classic records that Thursday mentioned, Hansa Studios is also where the excellent new Blood Incantation album was recorded and it features heavily in the album’s making-of documentary–2024 has turned out to be a very big year for Hansa.
With this new song out in the world, Thursday will direct their attention to the past when they perform their 1999 debut album Waiting in full for its 25th anniversary across three intimate shows at NJ venue Crossroads this weekend: a Friday night (12/6) show, followed by an afternoon matinee and a night show on Saturday (12/7). After that, they’ll open Silverstein’s 25th anniversary tour (alongside Arm’s Length and Split Chain), and then open the massive NJ date of My Chemical Romance’s The Black Parade tour (MetLife Stadium on August 9, also with Death Cab For Cutie), and then set sail aboard the Coheed cruise in November. All dates are listed below.
Two of Thursday’s members have also been busy with the supergroup L.S. Dunes (alongside members of My Chem, Coheed, and Circa Survive), whose sophomore album Violet comes out in January. For more on that, you can pick up the winter 2024 issue of Alternative Press that has L.S. Dunes on the cover.
Thursday’s first comeback single, “Application For Release From the Dream,” is available on exclusive etched white vinyl in the BV shop, paired with the summer 2024 issue of Revolver magazine with Thursday on the cover.
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Thursday — 2024/2025 Tour Dates
playing Waiting in full:
12.06 Garwood, NJ Crossroads
12.07 Garwood, NJ Crossroads – all ages afternoon show
12.07 Garwood, NJ Crossroads – 21+ evening show
supporting Silverstein (with Arm’s Length and Split Chain):
1.10 Philadelphia, PA The Fillmore Philadelphia
1.11 Boston, MA Citizens House of Blues
1.12 Sayreville, NJ Starland Ballroom
1.14 Buffalo, NY Buffalo RiverWorks
1.15 Huntington, NY The Paramount
1.17 Pittsburgh, PA Stage AE
1.18 Silver Spring, MD The Fillmore Silver Spring
1.19 Charlotte, NC The Fillmore Charlotte
1.21 Atlanta, GA The Masquerade (Heaven)
1.22 St Petersburg, FL Jannus Live
1.24 Houston, TX House of Blues
1.25 Dallas, TX The Factory in Deep Ellum
1.26 San Antonio, TX Vibes Event Center
1.28 Albuquerque, NM El Rey Theater
1.29 Tempe, AZ The Marquee
1.31 Anaheim, CA House of Blues
2.01 San Diego, CA The Observatory – North Park
2.02 Los Angeles, CA The Wiltern
2.04 Salt Lake City, UT The Complex
2.06 Denver, CO Mission Ballroom
2.08 St. Louis, MO The Pageant
2.10 Indianapolis, IN Egyptian Room at Old National Centre
2.11 Chicago, IL Concord Music Hall
2.12 Royal Oak, MI (Detroit) Royal Oak Music Theatre
2.14 Toronto, ON HISTORY
2.15 Montreal, QC Olympia de Montreal
2.28 Manchester, UK O2 Ritz
3.01 London, UK O2 Forum Kentish Town
3.04 Brussels, BE AB Box
3.05 Paris, FR Trabendo
3.06 Amsterdam, NL Melkweg
3.07 Wiesbaden, DE Schlachthof
3.08 Munich, DE Backstage Werk
3.10 Vienna, AT Arena Wien
3.11 Nuremberg, DE Löwensaal
3.13 Berlin, DE Huxleys
3.14 Hamburg, DE Grosse Freiheit
3.15 Cologne, DE Palladium
supporting My Chemical Romance (with Death Cab For Cutie):
8.09 East Rutherford, NJ Met Life Stadium
Coheed cruise:
11.08 – 11.13 SS NEVERENDER Miami to Cozumel, Mexico