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The California-based quartet, who've also been busy of late making high-profile main stage appearances at the Coachella, Reading & Leeds and Bamboozle festivals, have followed the New Pantheon Award-nominated Vheissu's radical metamorphosis with The Alchemy Index, a four-volume collection spread between two releases comprised of four EPs, each devoted to one of the classical elements in nature-fire, water, earth and air-with each EP sonically and thematically tailored to evoke the atmosphere inherent in its corresponding element. This fall marks the release of the first two volumes of the series-Fire & Water-while Earth & Air are scheduled for a spring debut. For Thrice, it's the realization of a year-long process of writing and recording, which was done primarily in the band's own studio and engineered by guitarist Teppei Teranishi, without the assistance of an outside producer.

Thrice fans will likely find the thundering strains of Fire to be the most familiar of the four EPs, with the kind of blistering riffs and captivating melodies the band has built a career upon. From the opening bombast of "Firebreather" to the towering, unforgettable "Burn the Fleet," with its Elliot Smith meets Isis vibe, Fire exhibits a Thrice who still know how to punish with decibels, and with greater force and impact than ever before.

Water, on the other hand, offers some of the most subdued textures the band have explored to date, and makes extensive use of a palette of electronic sounds, particularly for rhythms and synthesized effects. Haunting and beautiful, Water is an aural aquatic voyage as serene as it is somber, with the shimmering bliss of "Open Water" naturally coexisting with the dark, moody "The Whaler" and the groundbreaking and evocative instrumental track, "Night Diving."

Although completed, the Earth & Air installments of the series will emerge in the spring, after listeners have had a chance to fully absorb the first half of the Alchemy Index's massive, multi-layered complexity. A milestone offering from a band with so much still left to explore, the success of this seemingly daunting effort hints at the potential for even more challenging, yet wholly unpredictable, creations in the future.

"From here, we can kind of go anywhere," Kensrue adds. "I don't think anyone really knows what will be next."

On The Alchemy Index, Thrice destroyed the rock rulebook and created their most engrossing and accomplished work to date�The true evolution of a band.