The word that most closely comes to mind when talking about Thrice is consistency. The second word that I most closely associate with this legendary band on their 11th studio album, Horizons/East, is variety. They simply do not make the same record twice; a true marking of an artist that is uncomfortable with the comfort that comes with creating similar sounding material. On Horizons/East, Thrice are able to embrace the change that comes with pushing themselves to their artistic limits, and much like that famous Lindsay Lohan meme; the limit does not exist.

This picturesque record opens with the sprawling “The Color of the Sky,” as Dustin Kensrue sets the stage with, “My first and foremost memory / Is staring up in wonder at the wall / It circumscribed the city / They said beyond it nothing dwelt at all / But I came to wonder if the stories all were true / So one night I made my mind up / I resolved that I would find a passage through” before drummer Riley Breckenridge explodes into one of my favorite drum fills in recent memory. Kensrue’s closing lyrics of “I don’t know the way, but I know that I belong out here / On this journey that I never thought I’d make / Setting out across a new frontier / A new horizon with each eager step I take,” seems to encapsulate everything that I love about his top-notch storytelling on my favorite opening tracks in their discography since Vheissu’s “Image of the Invisible.”