Thread arrives as the follow-up to Polyester Zeal, a 2015 release whose hit singles “Emotionless” and “The Otherside” each landed at No. 1 on Billboard’s Rock chart. The title, Thread, echoes Red Sun Rising’s refusal to adhere to any genre. Singer, Mike Protich says, “It came from us being tired of people asking us to describe our music. It’s our way of saying we’re not a rock band, we’re not a metal band, we’re not an alternative band—we’ve just taken all our influences and all these different eras of music, and threaded them together to create our own sound.”