The Thermals
May 5, 10 Pearl St., Northampton, Mass., (413) 584-7771, iheg.com

It's weird about Portland, Oregon. Going there is like hanging around one big conglomeration of 20- and 30-somethings who all love the same things (indie-everything, coffee, Mother Earth, walking their dogs, each other). So it almost seems a little bit like you're kidding yourself when you're there. You get totally indie-washed.

Then again, why wouldn't you hang around what and who you love? The Thermals (from Portland) are big advocates for their town and why shouldn't they be? (They also totally disagreed with my theory that Portland might be too insular. Lead singer Hutch Harris wrote to me in an e-mail, "Your theory is bullshit! You'd have to live there for a while to really understand it, I think.")

"We have some lovely neighbors here. The Shins, Modest Mouse, the Decemberists, the Jicks, the Blow, Blitzen Trapper, Menomena, you can stop us anytime. What you can't stop is the overwhelming awesomeness of Portland's indie-rock scene, of which we consider ourselves an integral part, thank you very much!" reads the bio on the Thermals' Web site.

A lot of people wouldn't mind having those bands as their neighbors, to be sure, and the Thermals line up with those other indie superstars.

I called Harris at this home in Portland, where he was resting up for the band's tour. The band had just enjoyed a nice stay at SXSW, where they were quite well received. (David Carr wrote in a blog for the New York Times that the band "approach[ed] majesty, or at least bliss" at the festival.)

"We had a real good time," Harris said.

Their fourth record, Now We Can See, is a sharply produced, cleaner, dancier, post-poppier upgrade from last year's Returning to the Fold (which was also a good dirty-ass punk-rock album with at least two songs perfect for car-singing and fist-pumping).

The Thermals are a trio: Hutch Harris, Kathy Foster, and Westin Glass. They got together in 2002 and were picked up by Sub Pop in '03. They started out playing noisy "no-fi" that was basically considered so awful to listen to that the indie world embraced it as genius. The Thermals are tighter now, and they've moved on from Sub Pop. Now they're on Kill Rock Stars.

Harris told me the band finished Now We Can See at producer John Congleton's Dallas studio. (Congleton's worked with guys like Antony and the Johnsons, Modest Mouse, the Mountain Goats, Smog, Erykah Badu, you can imagine this guy's pretty rad.) The band benefits from the clarity of very-good production; Harris's lyrics are a bit lost in the fuzz of their last records, and on this one his fatalism and questioning of the higher power and all that other great existential shit is a little sharper, easier to tune into. But, he told me, "I think if people just focus on the choruses/danceability, etc., it's fine. But if they dig deeper there's a lot to think about."

Harris is funny and smart, and the Thermals' personality is what makes the band good, and fun, and a perfect fit for their town. I asked Harris if people were even fazed anymore by the ubiquity of indie celebrity in Portland.

"People throw themselves at me everywhere I go," Harris said. "But people are cool in Portland, they're used to being surrounded by gorgeous rock stars at this point."

I don't know. Should we all move west?