The Thermals provide a soundtrack for the end of the world.

Hutch Harris was raised a practising Catholic, but for a good idea of what he thinks about religion today check out the cover art of The Body The Blood The Machine, the third album from his Portland-based band, the Thermals. It’s there you’ll find a white-robed Jesus Christ positioned at the bottom of a mural that includes billowing smoke, a blazing-hot sun, and a mountain of wrecked automobiles. In case the point isn’t driven home that it’s the end of the world as we know it, there’s also a giant planet Earth with what looks like a streaking meteorite headed right for the modern Sodom and Gomorrah that is the USA. It’s all enough to make one think that Harris doesn’t spend a lot of time in church these days, with the same going for the band’s bassist, Kathy Foster.

“Kathy and I both grew up going to Catholic schools and going to church every week,” says the singer-guitarist, on the line from the Rose City. “I wasn’t from a strict family, but it was definitely part of my growing up. For a while I was really involved in the church—I was even in a Christian club. There were a lot of really positive aspects. In the end, though, it was hard for me to really believe in God. I kind of dropped out of the church right when I graduated from high school, and then my parents did the same a year later.”

If Harris has problems believing in a higher power these days, he’s not alone. After all, what sane person would believe that any god would condone the glorified holy war being waged in the Middle East? Without ever being black-and-white about it, The Body The Blood The Machine is inspired by America’s most misguided foreign-policy debacle since Vietnam. But it’s also about much more, including global warming, religious intolerance, the threat of nuclear war, the appeal of devolution, and the way that religion is, more than ever, an opiate for the masses.

“It’s difficult for me to believe in George Bush and all those guys even believing in God,” Harris says. “I feel that they are more fanatical about making money than anything else. It just seems to me that religion is, more than anything, a good tool for doing that.”

A loose concept album, The Body The Blood The Machine imagines a world where a fascist Christian government controls the power. Setting the scene is “Here’s Your Future”, a grunged-out rocker in which the White House declares war on the godless heathens of America. Over the half-hour that follows, the Thermals weave a scarily believable tale: nonzealots are rounded up and shipped off to concentration camps (“An Ear for Baby”); America’s insatiable appetite for oil leads to all-out insanity on a global level (“Power Doesn’t Run on Nothing”); and a subsequent nuclear war leaves a Road Warrior–like band of survivors to wonder what the hell happened (“I Hold the Sound”).

All this makes The Body The Blood The Machine sound like a particularly ambitious artifact (think Hí¼sker Dí¼’s Zen Arcade) from the golden age of hardcore, a time when Ronald Reagan was president and the world was teetering on the verge of nuclear annihilation. But while the Thermals have unwittingly placed themselves in the same conscientious-objector camp as professional agitators like Anti-Flag, there’s a lot more going on in The Body The Blood The Machine than paint-by-numbers punk. As obviously indebted as Harris and Foster are to vintage Emerald City grunge, they aren’t afraid to incorporate classic indie rock, distortion-bombed cowpunk, and dissonant college-radio pop into their overamped mix.

“The goal is to do more, to try and spread out artistically and make songs that go different places,” Harris explains.

Nonetheless, he admits that during interviews he ends up discussing politics and God more than music, something he doesn’t mind.

“I don’t know what we’d be talking about if I was writing girl-and-boy love songs,” he says with a laugh. “I’m not trying to preach or give some knee-jerk reaction to the government. I’m just trying to make things interesting. There are so many unoriginal songs—kind of like ”˜Smash the State’ kind of stuff—out there. I wanted to write about politics, but you have to be careful that what you write isn’t going to become dated in four years. So what I wanted to do was look at the U.S. and ask, What’s behind the politics and where’s the money coming from?

“That’s where I got into Christianity,” he continues. “To me, this is a record about religion, but it’s also supposed to be about how religion is propping up the American government. I mean, we’re in a holy war right now.”

Having grappled with some big issues this time out, the singer-guitarist thinks it may be time to lighten up. The next Thermals record, he promises, won’t find the band—which now includes recently recruited drummer Lorin Coleman—obsessed with intolerant Christians, raging oil wars, or any of the other assorted atrocities that keep North Americans glued to the nightly news.

“I’m going for something more simple,” Harris reveals. “I really just want the next record to be about catchy songs. I don’t know what the lyrics will be, but you can be sure that there won’t be anything about cars.”

Or, one would assume, God.

The Thermals play the Media Club tonight (February 22).