Dustin Kensrue- Thrice 'The Perfect Pressure Cooker Scenario'

Thrice aren’t a band to do things in half measures. Their career has long been built upon creative exploration, taking risks, pushing musical boundaries and chasing something new and exciting. Rather than rest of their laurels and just churn out a new record for the sake it, the band have been very conscious of creating when and if it feels right. Their tenth full length album Horizons/West is a true testament to this in so many ways. While it is the companion to their 2021 album Horizons/East and features a slew of nods and easter eggs to the former, West stands as it’s own triumphant piece in the Thrice catalogue and honestly, might be their most excited and complete feeling album in a long time.
"It was pretty quick. We were getting back in the studio and I was just like ‘I know we said we’d do this, but we don’t have to’. We were tired, just mentally tired. It’s really an immersive process and it’s our favourite thing that we get to do, but at the end of it you’re fried. It was a bad idea to try and do it that way."
"I think we could’ve done it if we’d had more time and we would’ve just made all the songs at the same time and then broken them up. Kind of like how we did on The Alchemy Index, where we made all 24 songs during the same period. I think it would’ve been harder to get over the finish line though."
"It’s a very intense time, trying to finish a record and we didn’t know why we were doing it to ourselves. It was because we had these other songs that we were excited about, but in the end, waiting created a very different record and a much better record than it would’ve been had we forced ourselves at the time."
2023 saw the band release The Artist In The Ambulance Revisited and celebrate the legacy of the album with shows around the world. This offered the perfect opportunity to shift the focus away from working on Horizons/West, and allowed the band to return to the studio with just the right amount of time up their sleeve to get the album dialled in. Kensrue notes that while it was great to get more time to work on the album, that they never want too much time.
"I think having deadlines is absolutely necessary or we’ll never finish anything, and specifically on this record, we had a very small window that we left ourselves to put it all together. We did that in essentially four weeks, which was very fast for us. It was this intense period of just putting songs together, but it was enough time to not overthink. I really think it was the perfect pressure cooker in this scenario."
"It’s definitely my favourite record we’ve done in a long time, and I like what we’ve been doing on the past few records. There’s something lively and refreshing about the record. Even the slower songs are still very energetic. I like listening to it, and I think it’s the most I’ve listened to a completed record of ours in a while."
Thrice have done it all label wise, from humble beginnings on Sub City Records, to major label deals with Island followed by years of working with Vagrant Records. When it was announced that they had signed with the legendary label Epitaph Records in 2018, it felt like a match made in heaven. Horizons/West is Thrice’s third album to be released via Epitaph, and Kensrue notes how the label has simply empowered them to do their thing from day one.
"By the time we came to Epitaph, we had been doing our thing for a long time. Kind of the same way when we were working with Vagrant before them, they just said ‘we just wanna work with you guys. We know you’re going to do your thing and we’re into that’, and it was the same thing when we moved to Epitaph. Our contract is up with them after this record, so I don’t know what we’re gonna do. They let us do the Artist re-release on our own, so maybe we might do that."
2025 is momentous for Thrice, not only with the release of their tenth album, but also in celebrating 20 years of Vheissu, an album that changed the entire trajectory of the band and set them on the aforementioned path of constant creative exploration. Dark, moody, immense and complex, Vheissu was a sharp left turn away from the sounds of The Artist In The Ambulance and The Illusion Of Safety, and while this was a huge risk at the time, it was the move that taught fans that you weren’t going to get the same Thrice record twice. Looking back on 20 years of Vheissu, Kensrue notes that he only has one big gripe about the album.
"I just did a full catalogue listen through with my wife on a few different road trips, so I’ve listened through it in the last two months or so. I think it’s great in a lot of ways, it is the record before I start liking my vocals on Thrice records."
"That’s my biggest gripe with it, I didn’t feel comfortable in the studio yet, I didn’t know how to ask for what I needed."
"It’s always nerve wracking when you’re in a booth and someone says ‘alright, just sing the song’. You’re so focused on trying to sing the right notes and I didn’t have anyone there to work with me on getting the right performance. Once we did Alchemy and it was just me and Teppei, it was just relaxed and I figured out how to sing in the studio then. So, I don’t love the vocal performances on it, but it does stand out as a milestone in our development and the catalogue. There’s a lot there to be proud of."
Interview by Nick Simonsen @blackechomusic
Horizons/West is out on October 3rd via Epitaph Records. Find out more here!

Thrice- Horizons/West Tracklisting
1. Blackout
2. Gnash
3. Albatross
4. Undertow
5. Holding On
6. Dusk
7. The Dark Glow
8. Crooked Shadows
9. Distant Suns
10. Vesper Light
11. Unitive/West