Thrice has launched the first podcast with song samples, an interview and commentaries for their upcoming full length Vheissu. The album is the band's sophomore release for Island and follow up to The Artist in the Ambulance as well as their recent DVD+CD release If We Could Only See Us Now.

The podcast includes portions of three songs and is the first of four podcasts. The next three will be posted on September 27th, October 4th and October 11th respectively.

You can check out Chapter 1 here [direct link.]

The band previously released a DRM-restricted track with only a portion of the single, "Image of the Invisible" playable until 100,000 listeners have downloaded the portion. As of this posting, the track can be heard in its entirety. Also released over the past few weeks was a myspace stream and a registration-required streaming track.

The album is due out October 18th and the band has enlisted Underoath, The Bled and Veda for the support tour that will visit the US and Canada.