Beggars (album)
Beggars is the seventh studio album by American rock band Thrice. It was released digitally through Vagrant Records in the UK on August 9, 2009, and in the US on August 11, 2009. A physical release containing bonus material was released on September 15, 2009. Background and production Between September 2006 and June 2007, Thrice recorded a project revolving around the elements fire, water, air and earth. Dubbed The Alchemy Index, it was released as two double-discs sets: Vols. I & II: Fire & Water in October 2007, and Vols. III & IV: Air & Earth in April 2008. Writing for Beggars began in January 2009, with the band aiming to make the record "a little more upbeat and energetic" following their two previous projects, Vheissu and The Alchemy Index, which they felt had a "sleepy feeling" to them. Though Kensrue took a break from the writing process to go on a brief US tour later in the month. The Alchemy Index saw the group write to theme-specific elements, and record in a split manner: two of the members would be work on an acoustic song, while drummer Riley Breckenridge was focused on programming for the Water element, or bassist Eddie Breckenridge would be writing bass parts for the Fire element. It resulted in the band spending less time together to work on ideas. With Beggars, it became a collaboration between the members where they jammed on material and crafted songs as a unit. Recording took place at New Grass Studios, which was built by the band themselves in guitarist Teppei Teranishi's garage. It was done with the aims of saving money and allowing the band members to spend more time with their families. The band as a whole and Teranishi separately received joint producer credit; Teranishi also served as the engineer. They typically recorded around four takes of any given track, which they'd stitch together to make a version they felt was interesting. Sessions began in March, and after 13 tracks had been recorded, they concluded in June; Dave Schiffman mixed the recordings, before they were mastered by Howie Weinberg at Masterdisk. Composition Overview It incorporated elements of their Vheissu (2005) and The Alchemy Index releases, namely from the Water and Air discs. Beggars saw Teranishi and Kensrue take influence from blues music, while Eddie and Riley Breckenridge centered their attention on grooves. It drew comparison to Radiohead and Muse. The band wanted a dry drum tone for "Circles", which they were unable to get in their garage studio. They decided to put blankets on Riley Breckenridge's kit, which they ended up using for several of the songs. All of the music was written by the band, while Kensrue wrote almost all of the lyrics, bar "We Move Like Swing Sets" (which was written by Eddie Breckenridge). Kensrue said writing lyrics were a slow process for him due to being a perfectionistic and thinking of every aspect of a song, such as its mood and metre. He spent two