Thursday was a "screamo" band from New Jersey, fronted by screaming vocalist Geoff Rickly and featuring guitarists Steve Pedulla and Tom Keeley. Waiting (1999) and especially Full Collapse (2001), with the catchy Understanding in a Car Crash, Standing on the Edge of Summer and How Long is the Night, displayed a virulent strand of emocore, highlighted by the vocalist's passion and by a uniform mood of despair.

The somber mood of the September 11 terrorist attacks permeated War All the Time (2003), that featured new keyboardist Andrew Everding and pointed towards a more extroverted sound, basically transposing the intimate angst of the first two albums into the collective psyche (This Song Brought to You By a Falling Bomb, Division St).

Longer and more complex songs, and a shiny production, transformed the band's sound on A City By The Light Divided (2006), separating the strands of epos (Counting 5-4-3-2-1), aggression (At This Velocity) and atmosphere (Running from the Rain). The last four songs (Telegraph Avenue Kiss, The Lovesong Writer, Into the Blinding Light, Autumn Leaves Revisited) showcased a mature storytelling talent. Dave Fridmann's production is the antithesis to Thursday's screamo.

While most bands become more accessible as they age, Thursday's fifth album Common Existence (Epitaph, 2009), again produced by Dave Fridmann, was their most difficult, both in terms of song dynamics and in terms of instrumental scores. It also leaned more towards the dark aspects of their music than towards the sunny ones.

No Devolucion (2011), their third collaboration with Fridmann, completed the transformation from rebellious youth to mature philosophers and eccentric arrangers: occasionally catchy (Magnets Caught in a Metal Heart), but mostly closer to the austere mood of post-rock (No Answer, Stay True) and to the oneiric mood of dream-pop (A Darker Forest).

Application For Release From The Dream (2024) collects unreleased recordings.