"We're packing our things/ We're building a boat/ We're gonna create/ The new master race/ Cuz we're so pure/ Oh lord, we're so pure." —"Here's Your Future"

Tucked neatly in the middle of that disc was a song called "God and Country" in which Hutch Harris, The Thermals' singer and guitarist, wailed in his adenoidal, Mac McCaughan-esque yowl, "My god above/ A total lack of ... pray for, a new state/ Pray for, assassination." Tacked onto the end of Fuckin A was a 57-second whirlwind, "Top of the Earth," so packed with startlingly astute images of our country's current global fiasco it bursts. The most rich and poignant: "blood, sand and soil, and cheap motor oil."

So while it may seem surprising that the trio's new CD, The Body, The Blood, The Machine, goes real heavy on God and politics, the truth is we knew this was coming.

"I was raised Catholic, and so was [bassist] Kathy [Foster]. We both went to church every Sunday. Went to CCD and Catholic schools growing up," explains Harris on a choppy cell phone line from his Portland home. "I'd like to say I'm still Christian, but I feel like I can't."

NEW CULTURE ICONS: The Thermals' latest goes heavy on God and politics (L-R: Lorin Coleman, Hutch Harris and Kathy Foster).

For Harris, who did most of the songwriting for The Body, The Blood, The Machine, God's a tricky concept. For starters, singing about God these days isn't necessarily going to get you invited to sit with the cool kids. "When I go back and listen to Highway 61, I realize how [Dylan was] using names from the Bible and using God's name," says Harris. "Christian rock got so big in the last 15 to 20 years, people were afraid to write anything about God because they were afraid of getting pegged as a Christian band."

But when Harris sings "I Might Need You to Kill" ("Locust, tornadoes, crosses and Nazi halos") or "Pillar of Salt" ("We don't want to die or apologize for our dirty God, our dirty bodies") it's not as if he's singing praise. It's about God as weapon.

"It used to be about helping your fellow man," says Harris of his pious upbringing. "But in the last 10 years I've been sort of let down by religion and Christianity in this country. It's the government doing terrible things in the name of Christ."

It's no doubt been difficult these last five years for anyone with even an inkling of what Christianity is about to witness the atrocities carried out in its name. (And the same surely goes for Islam, Judaism, et al.) The Body, The Blood, The Machine is rife with images of scripture twisted for political gain.

In "Pillar of Salt," the album's first single (and a gleeful and infectious video), "a giant fist is out to crush us." "You'd like to think of it as God, but it's mostly people wearing a giant fist costume," Harris explains. "It's about using Jesus for good and using Jesus for bad."

In "I Might Need You to Kill," "They'll drown you in disease, they'll pound you with the love of Jesus." In "An Ear for Baby," "Get thyself in line, it's time for reassigning, it's time for a new first world order."

But it's "Our Power Doesn't Run on Nothing" and its claim that "God is with us and our God's the richest" that is The Body's most baldfaced indictment of the current administration: "So give us what we're asking for/ Cuz either way we're gonna take it/ Our power doesn't run on nothing/ We need the land you're standing on."

For Harris, the song was a bit of role-playing. "It's about understanding," he explains. "I was trying to think what is going on in the heads of these people. Like, if Dick Cheney were going to write a song, an honest song, that's what I was trying to write. I was trying to understand greed and what greed drives people to do."

Not that Harris expects his songs of protest to make a difference. While the album opener, "Here's Your Future," with its invocation of floods and rebirth ("So bend your knees and bow your heads, save your babies, here's our future") could be seen as a plea to teach the next generation what the last never learned, Harris says he's got no delusions about the reach of his politics. "People are enjoying the music and the feeling more than the message," he says. "You have to go in not expecting any sort of results. I don't know if it could rally anyone, or piss off anyone."

(bhoward@citypaper.net)