War All the Time is the third studio album by American rock band Thursday. Following the release of their second album Full Collapse (2001), the group had a series of negative experiences with their label Victory Records regarding promotion. While this was happening, the group was contacted by major labels, and in May 2002, signed to Island Records. The signing was made official later in the year when an exit agreement was made with Victory Records. In November, the group started writing new material. In January 2003, they began recording their next album with Sal Villanueva at Big Blue Meenie Recording Studios in Jersey City, New Jersey. Sessions lasted six months, aside from a break in April to play shows. In late April, "For the Workforce, Drowning" was released as a single, followed by "Signals Over the Air" in August.

War All the Time was released through Island Records on September 16. Selling 74,000 copies in the first week, the album charted at number seven on the Billboard 200. In addition, it charted within the top 75 in the UK. Following this, keyboardist Andrew Everding, who had performed on a few songs on the album, became a member of the group. The group then went on a short US tour, before embarking on a UK tour. Between October and December, the group went on another US tour, toured with Deftones, and filmed a video for "War All the Time". In early 2004, the group toured Japan, Australia and New Zealand, before supporting AFI in North America in February and March. In April, the band went on another tour and appeared on Warped Tour.

Background In 2001, Thursday signed to independent label Victory Records. After signing, the band received warnings from their friends that they would find themselves in "a situation that we would regret." The group was unsure what they meant, but thought things would turn out fine due to their contract with the label. They initially thought that part of the contract meant they could sign with a different label if they chose to. However, they realized the deal had in fact stated they could only leave Victory if it was to join a major label, which they thought was "a far-fetched idea to say the least." Later in the year, they released their second album Full Collapse through the label, eventually reaching number 178 on the Billboard 200. Before appearing on Warped Tour, the group visited Victory's offices and learned about Thursday-branded whoopee cushions that the label was planning to sell at the tour. Vocalist Geoff Rickly discussed this matter with Victory founder Tony Brummel, and according to the band, responded that Victory "was a big company and that they didn't have time to run everything by the band." The band were perplexed when the label suggested releasing singles and making music videos, as they felt hardcore bands did not need to do singles and believed they would not appear on radio.

On a number of occasions, the group attempted to have better communication with the label in regards to promotion. On one occasion, Brummel informed them they were not living up to his expectations. Sometime afterwards, the group was touring with Saves the Day. Around this time, Thursday had started writing material for their next album; guitarist Tom Keeley said they had two older songs that were almost close to completion before they had started promoting Full Collapse. Also during this period, Brummel became more positive in his interactions, frequently calling the band "just to say hello, or to ask how record sales at shows were going." The group was disappointed that his positivity "wasn't there from the beginning. ... Instead of Tony's relationship with us being based on a love for music, it was based entirely on numbers." While all the interactions with the label were occurring, the group was being contacted by major labels. The group, who "didn't understand [anything] about major labels", pondered about other independent labels they would join. However, due to their contract they wouldn't be allowed to move to another independent label. Throughout 2001, people from major label Island Records had been to the band's shows since they became a full-time touring act. Soon after, the label expressed interest in signing the band. In February 2002, keyboardist Andrew Everding joined the band.

In late May 2002, the group announced they had signed to Island Records, following a bidding war between other major labels. Victory tried to get the band to sign to a different major label in a deal that would have enabled Victory to serve as a sub-label for them. Up to this point, Full Collapse had sold 111,000 copies. On September 9, the group's signing to Island Records was made official following negotiations of an exit agreement with Victory Records. The agreement required parent company Island/Def Jam to buy out Victory's contract claim for the group's next two albums. Rickly said as a result of the deal, Victory Records received $1,200,000, which meant the band would be "[paying off] that bill for as long as we were on the new label." In addition, their next two albums were required to feature the Victory logo. With expectation building for their follow-up album, Rickly wanted their next album to be "really aggressive and progressive ... and have all these boundary pushing ideas". In September and October, the group went on the Plea for Peace Tour, and were planning to work on their next album following its conclusion. They said they had accumulated a lot of ideas but were unable to work on them due to touring. In mid-November, the group continued writing new material; over the course of the next two months, they wrote the majority of what would become the album. Up to now, the members had made notes on their laptops and made Pro Tools set-ups in the back of their touring buses to record ideas they had accumulated. While the band did have writer's block, they worked through it as they were short on time.

Production In January 2003, Kludge reported that Thursday were in the process of recording their next album, which was expected for release in summer or fall. Recording took place at Big Blue Meenie Recording Studios in Jersey City, New Jersey and lasted six months. Though they had thought about working with other producers, they decided to work with Full Collapse producer Sal Villanueva again. Joe Pedulla, Arun Venkatesh, Erin Farley and Villanueva engineered the sessions with assistance from Lee Zappas and Mike LaPierre. With Full Collapse, the band members' home lives felt separate from the recording, according to Rickly. However, for War All the Time, "Life resumed for each of us ... and all the stresses of life came in." He mentioned that some of the members got married, and family members had died. He added, "I feel like all the stress is reflected in the way the album sounds."

Rickly thought they were "doing things that were kind of excessive", mentioning that they recorded four different recordings of every track "just to see which one turned out the best." While this was occurring, the group was writing new material. Rickly said three of these new songs would not have been tracked had they not had the time, specifically mentioning "Division St." and "Signals Over the Air". Villanueva noticed the group getting burned out and took them to a farmhouse studio, which was Longview Farm Studios in North Brookfield, Massachusetts. Rickly said it was located in the "woods, basically it’s a log cabin with a fireplace, it’s just really beautiful." The studio had a grand piano on which the group fleshed out a piano part that Everding had previously written. Rickly said Everding repeatedly played the part and recorded it. The group took a break from recording to play a few shows in late April.

While working on lyrics for the final three songs, he was unable to write any words and became unhappy with the songs. He subsequently suffered from writer's block for a month.Greenwald 2003, p. 92 Rickly said that after recording was completed, the rest of the band wrote three more songs, which they "liked even better". The label gave the band money to record the new tracks; sessions continued into May 2003. The recordings were mixed by Rumblefish with assistance from Coady Brown, and then mastered by Bob Ludwig at Gateway Mastering in Portland Maine. Everding played keyboards on "Division St.", "Marches and Maneuvers", "Asleep in the Chapel", "This Song Brought to You by a Falling Bomb", "Steps Ascending", "M. Shepard" and "Tomorrow I'll Be You". Tim Gilles played keyboards on "Between Rupture and Rapture" and "Signals Over the Air". Gretta Cohn of Cursive and Jonah Matranga of Onelinedrawing appeared on "Steps Ascending", providing cello and vocals respectively. Arun Venkatesh performed programming on "M. Shepard". Keri Levens, Marc Meltser and Dave Ciancio provided vocals on "War All the Time".

Composition Overview All of the music was written by Thursday except for "This Song Brought to You by a Falling Bomb", which was co-written between Everding and the band. All of the lyrics were written by Geoff Rickly. The material on Full Collapse was written over a two-year period, while for War All the Time, the tracks were done in two months. During this time period, they spent every day working on songs from 11AM to 8PM. Guitarist Steve Pedulla said they expanded further on ideas from Full Collapse, in addition to channelling the music they were listening to. He explained that what someone listens to can influence their playing, and despite the group listening to "a lot of mellower stuff", the music came out "a lot heavier". While on tour, they listened to Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Mogwai. Prior to the album, the group was asked if it would sound closer to "Jet Black New Year", a track Pedulla called "the heaviest song we wrote". Pedulla and Keeley initially denied it; the former stated that the song was a direction they "went for a little while, and we are going somewhere else now." Keeley added that it "definitely runs thematically" throughout War All the Time.

Speaking of the title, Rickly said: "I think a title like War All the Time for a record about love seems to demonstrate what our band is about — that balance between violence and grace." He added that he had been "afraid to talk about the idea of romantic love in songs because I feel like it's such a cliché". Rickly got the notion of tackling romance from writer Charles Bukowski, who wrote a poem where the album took its title from. He said it soon became a substantial part of his life, and he "felt like I was stifling myself by not writing about it." Discussing the lack of hooks on the album, Rickly said "When you write music, you hear what you've done, and you immediately find what you're missing with what you did." He added, "If this were a really hooky record, I'd say it weren't complex enough." Musically, the album's sound has been classified as post-hardcore, emo and scene music.

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