Hear The Pre-Thermals On Urban Legends Compilation

Once upon a time, the core of alt.punk group The Thermals, Hutch Harris and Kathy Foster, called themselves Urban Legends.

Now with the success of the Portland, Ore. trio's third Sub Pop release, The Body, The Blood, The Machine, their old label, Contraphonic, is taking a walk down memory lane and will release a 19-track compilation that brings together songs from the Urban Legend library: an LP, an EP and a string of seven-inch singles.

Of Old Lost Days hits stores on Jan. 23. It includes difficult-to-find and previously unreleased material recorded between 1997 and 2002.

Urban Legends started out in San Jose, Calif. in 1996, with Harris messing around on a four-track recorder at home. Foster joined him in 1998 and they began playing shows. The group, at one time, also included members of Kind Of Like Spitting and Marc Bianchi of Her Space Holiday. Foster and Harris also released material as Hutch And Kathy and Haelah before they formed The Thermals with drummer Jordan Hudson in 2002.

Hudson left the band just before the recording of The Body, forcing Harris and Foster to play all the instruments on the album. They've since added drummer Lorin Coleman and are in the middle of touring. They hit Vancouver's Media Club on Feb. 22 for their only Canadian stop.

Here are the songs on Of Old Lost Days:

"Soak And Drown"
"Of Old Lost Days"
"Nonsense Not To Decode"
"My Only Defense Left"
"You Don't Even Have To Try"
"The World Is Strange"
"Electric Heat"
"I See The Mirror"
"I Can See The Future"
"The Saviors"
"One Final Breath"
"Party For As Long As You Can"
"Time Alone"
"As You Run"
"The West Coast"
"Every Face"
"We Partied Here Enough"
"I Wanna Holiday"
"The Future, The Sea"