This week, Melbourne’s Thornhill is set to release their highly anticipated third studio album, BODIES, on April 4 via UNFD.
Building on the success of their ARIA Award-nominated 2022 album Heroine, BODIES sees Thornhill reaching new heights, blending intense vulnerability with some of their heaviest tracks to date!
Ahead of the album’s release this week, Jacob Charlton and Ethan McCann reached out to share their favorite tracks from each of Thornhill’s studio albums, including their brand-new release, BODIES.
The Dark Pool (2019)
- Ethan McCann: As much as I’m over playing it, I still think Where We Go When We Die is probably the best song on that album. The journey of that song was really fun to write. It’s hard to write a song that’s a journey but also one that feels cohesive. And I think we did that really well with that song.
- Jacob Charlton: I’m gonna say In My Skin. That was the first time we experimented with something that is kind of similar to what we’re doing now. It kind of moves in a less traditional way, I don’t rely on my high voice, and we went for something a bit more rhythmical and lower. And it’s kind of attitude-based. There was always something about In My Skin that I thought was really sick, and it had some flavour that I felt the rest of the record might not have had. And it was probably the least metalcore song in the end. It felt a bit more experimental from both of us, we had that big lead at the end. It definitely had some sauce!
Heroine (2022)
- Ethan: I feel like we’re both going to have the same answer for this one. Or maybe not? I’m a bit split for this one.
- Jacob: I’m split too.
- Ethan: For me, it’s between The Hellfire Club and Hollywood.
- Jacob: I’d say those too but Heroine bro…
- Ethan: Yeah, it’s close. It’s so close, that was the love triangle of that album.
- Jacob: And they’re the start, end and middle of the album as well.
- Ethan: Yeah, that kind of sums up that record. For The Hellfire Club, we were going for a very particular vibe, we were trying to bring in this Mellon Collie [and the Infinite Sadness]-era, The Smashing Pumpkins kind of aesthetic and sonics to this metalcore-ish song with all the orchestral stuff. I think we got close, but I don’t think we nailed it as hard as we wanted to, but I think we can probably say that for most of that album, to be honest. It feels like such a cop out to say three songs though, I feel like we have to decide!
- Jacob: I would say Hollywood then.
- Ethan: Yeah, let’s go with that.
- Jacob: I think Hollywood had so much movement, it didn’t have a traditional structure. We tried to tell a story with it, and I also have a lot of good things connected to it. It was my favourite video, it was probably the hardest I ever worked on a music video. I thought it was beautiful, I don’t think a lot of other people did. But I also met my girlfriend on set for that video, so I’m always going to be a bit biased towards that song. It had such a cool and interesting movement about it, and everything felt so new and interesting. Everything had its nuance – and it was a long song! I think we’ve lost the love for long songs. I grew up with Metallica where songs were fucking eight minutes and you love them, even though they repeated a lot more than we do. Meshuggah do it too. It was just an interesting, dramatic song. And I think as a bit of a closet theatre kid, I loved it.
- Ethan: We always thought about that song in terms of the structure. You would usually have a chorus that would sort of be an anchor point in a song. But with Hollywood, we literally thought about it as: the first chorus happens, the second chorus is a double with both choruses, and then the third one is the last chorus. It’s like this chorus handover. The song develops, and you sort of get two in this one package. When we wrote it we were like: ‘man, this is so sick, nobody does that!’. But then so many people didn’t get it. And then we realised why people didn’t do it. But it’s still a really interesting song.
BODIES (2025)
- Ethan: Currently, nerv is my favourite from BODIES.
- Jacob: Yeah, definitely nerv. I do want to go back to Only Ever You here and there, but then recently I’ve also liked Revolver a bit more.
- Ethan: Damn, full circle!
- Jacob: I don’t go and listen to it, but I think us playing it…you know what I mean? I really liked under the knife, and then we started playing it and I was like: ‘this song fucking blows’. And then we started playing Revolver and I was like: ‘this is an enjoyable song to play’. So, that’s changed my mind a bit. It’s softened me up to it a bit, also with the knowledge that we’re going to have to play that one forever because people are going to love that one the most. I’m giving in early. I have to!
While Heroine revelled in lush textures and bold, curated aesthetics, the upcoming third studio album BODIES finds Thornhill opening the floodgates to spontaneity. Balancing intensity with boundless creative freedom and ingenuity, album #3 for Thornhill is not only a definitive snapshot of a band in full flight just shy of a decade into their staggering career; it’s also a celebration of authenticity and gripping dynamism from one of Australia’s most engaging heavy acts.Thornhill have amassed a heaving array of accolades over the years, including triple j’s Feature Album and additions to countless Best Of The Year listings for their 2019 release The Dark Pool. And in 2023 and 2024, the band gifted some insatiable new material courtesy of standalone singles Viper Room and Obsession, as well as a live album, Live On Tour!, boasting performances captured in the wild across the globe that released in June.
BODIES – OUT APRIL 4
https://thornhill.komi.io/
