The Thermals career is starting to seem like a long, slow fade to black. They peaked sometime before 2010, and their releases since then have charted a sad denouement. Personal Life (from 2010) seemed like an intentional detour, with 2013’s Desperate Ground serving as the token “return to form” apology record. Neither record was bad, per se, and there were always pockets of passion to be found, but with each release the band packed a little less wallop.

Enter We Disappear (Saddle Creek Records), and it seems The Thermals even titled the album to match my thesis. This one has considerably less “oomph” than its predecessor. Nothing here exhibits the punk-rock heart that has fueled the band’s best work. “Thinking of You” is pretty much the only sign of life. It’s a uniquely heavy dose of pop compared to most of Hutch Harris’s songs and seems to indicate that he’s been listening to the Gin Blossoms an awful lot lately. Maybe he should take that as a sign that his old formula is worn out and he needs to try something new.

Harris has written at least six other songs that sound just like opener “Into the Code,” and in fact the more you compare this record to their others, the more it starts to seem like Harris has just been rewriting the same song over and over. The way his vocal phrasing is so indistinguishable track-to-track is tiring and trying. If you’re not willing to sing more than five syllables in a row, there are only so many ways that’s going to land on one of these simple, similar riffs. Even Harris’s vocally realized sneer is sounding more like technique than attitude. It would be a shame if The Thermals were to continue down this path. The band was once animated by a roughshod fighting spirit, but they didn’t get much of that on wax this time around.