Available on iTunes from August but getting one of them hold-it-in-your-hands-and-actually-own-it-releases this September, Beggars is the latest offering from American post-hardcore-outfit-turned-vaguely-proggy-metal-shebang, Thrice (yeah, pigeon-holed the shit out of that).

As the newly monikered sub-genre up there suggests, frontman Dustin Kensrue used to shout and scream, a lot. He did it quite well to be honest but now he has toned it down a touch.

Like their contemporaries Brand New, the members of Thrice have spent the last four years evolving their band into something far more adventurous and complex. The material on the last offerings, The Alchemy Index and Vheissu, possessed a maturity that melodramatic earlier work had lacked. Despite this it retained the aggression and power of the first three albums, releasing it in a more considered manner. Measured, rather than raw, emotion is now cajoled and enticed from Kensrue’s voice. His recent solo jaunts seem to have made him more aware of his vocal talent and he is now capable of manipulating those cords much more acutely.

Beggars is a record that extends that rebuilding. The opening three tracks display Thrice at their broad-ranging best. Powerful tracks like All The World Is Mad and The Weight stand strong alongside the delicacies of the mournful, post-rockish Circles.

The album follows a similar path for its remainder. Tracks like Talking Through Glass should be played loud and used to test the aerodynamics of aeroplanes in wind tunnels while The Great Exchange and Wood & Fire used to settle insomniacs.

However, there are one or two low points. Doublespeak, through its keys and swaggering drum beat, sounds a bit like Starsailor to begin with and Kensrue does have a touch of the Cornell about his vocals at times.

Minute lapses into middle of the roadary aside, Beggars is an accomplished album that shows Thrice are capable of becoming a dominant force in the world of the headbanging muso and even hints at relative mainstream exposure.

Surely they won’t be Beggars for much longer.