New stuff from Hutch Harris (The Thermals)- Clear Rivers

One of my favorite bands of the last 20 years is the Thermals. 

I loved them from pretty much the first listen off of their 2003 debut More Parts Per Million. They made 7 studio album through their tenure ending in 2016. The band comparison that probably showed up the most in reviews was the Ramones but I would say more accurately- They are in the lineage of Lo fi heroes Eric’s Trip and peers Mountain Goats and of course, if we must, the Ramones simplicity but with a mix of Buzzcocks Pop punk and Talking Heads art rock. 

The Portland band spent much of its life as a trio with singer guitarist Hutch Harris and bassist/drummer Kathy Foster as the core of the band with six other people in service of the band (of these, most notably original drummer Jordan Hudson and Westin Glass, their drummer for the last decade). I don’t think any of their albums are bad. 2006s The Body, the Blood and the Machine perhaps their epic work. I was lucky that even though my concert going slowed, I did see the band live. The band took to social media in 2018 to announce their break up- their last album - the well received and appropriately named We Disappear. I haven’t heard from them since. 

At some point, recently I was in a Facebook group and lamenting and celebrating the band, when someone asked me if I was following Hutch’s solo career. Wait, what? I find out not only Harris has a solo career but a pretty prolific one at that. Harris has two solo albums since the Thermals broke up. One is 2018s Only Water- the other a compilation of pre- Thermals songs called Old Lost Days. Additionally, 2015 saw a wide release for Hutch and Kathy - a pre Thermals album recorded by Harris and Foster and more early Harris recordings are available under the band name Urban Legends Foster has also been busy. Spotify lists Roseblood as a project that may be ongoing that has been listed as being primarily her work but only lists a single . She had been playing drums for twee poppers All Girl Summer Fun Band while working concurrently in the Thermals Hurry Up is a trio with Foster and Glass that have a 2022 album. Wiki lists even another Foster project called Butterfly Transformation Service but info is pretty limited to a small comment on Discogs. 

The biggest Post- Thermals project might be Clear Rivers - Harris fronted trio (with Hudson on drums). The band self released their debut self titled album in April of 2023. Best Coast frontwoman Bethany Cosentino went viral last December for a TikTok video that spoke to many things but calls out that the media tends towards the new thing and the established thing and hurts veteran performers. For sure, Spotify shows the Thermals have 98,000 listeners a month but all of the other acts I have mentioned seem to top out at around 300. 

To be fair, Clear Rivers is missing Foster’s energy but is still a decent album - a bit closer to the more introspective moments of the late Thermals career. Also I did see that Harris has embraced the post-Cameo world of social media and will perform requested songs on Instagram for $25 (he has done 150 cover songs and counting)