At the end of summer 2017, not long after Thrice had finished up a national tour, singer Dustin Kensrue woke up in the middle of the night and found himself fixated on the mental image of an open hand—a visual that instantly became his touchstone in the writing of Thrice’s tenth album, Palms.

“I got up and started listing off all the things an open palm represented, especially as opposed to the idea of a closed hand or a fist,” says Kensrue, who co-founded Thrice with guitarist Teppei Teranishi, bassist Eddie Breckenridge, and drummer Riley Breckenridge in 1998. “That became the basis of the record: that feeling of being open, whether it’s open to mystery or to receive things or to give. The album came from a place of trying to combat the hate and bigotry we’re seeing in the world right now, but attempting to do that in a way that’s nondivisive.”

In the spirit of that openness, Thrice created Palms with a free-form and fluid approach to the album’s sonic element. The result is their most expansive work to date, encompassing everything from viscerally charged post-hardcore to piano-driven balladry. To carve out that eclectic sound, Thrice enlisted trusted producer Eric Palmquist for the recording of the percussion and vocal tracks, and self-produced all of the guitar parts on Palms. “When we track our own stuff we tend to be far less neurotic about getting every note perfect,” says Kensrue. “It’s more about getting the right emotion out of the performance, so that it connects on a deeper level.”