Matthew Thiessen and the Earthquakes - Wind Up Bird (August 31, 2018) Album • Page 4

Yes

 

this is great

 

Listening to this now and really liking it. The horns are so good.

 

The horns are a tremendous addition. They really take these songs a notch up in a way I wouldn’t have expected.

 

This is so sonically cohesive and shiny-sounding. His guitar style is really fun on this album, pretty different than anything from RK. Hmm...I LIKE IT.

 

The record is great. SMLXL disappointed me immensely with the release, though. The album art for the vinyl came out super low res and looks horrible, but the blue banner with the band name is super high res which makes it stand out even more. The preorder projection was early to mid August and it shipped at the end of August with no notification to buyers that the projection had changed. The preorder page promised delivery on or before release date and mine came today. The preorder page also promised a digital download of the album on ship date, which didn’t happen, and they retroactively changed the page to read “digital download on release date” and didn’t tell anyone, which is super lame and shady. I emailed them to express my disappointment and they got back to me within hours and gave me a full refund, but it was a “sorry you feel that way” apology which I found frustrating because I didn’t feel like my complaints were invalid, or even arguable at all.

That said, they’ll keep me as a customer because the refund was for sure more than they needed to do and because I don’t have a choice if I want to keep buying RK vinyl. The actual vinyl sounds great and the album is awesome.

 

Pretty big of them to give you a full refund. Sorry it was a less than perfect release though.

Has anyone else had any problems? Didn't order the vinyl myself but surprised that they would have low res artwork. Strange.

 

Check out this Reddit thread for pics. I have some posts in the thread but the pics are not mine.

Wind Up Bird Cover Art Res: Issue or Intention? : RelientK

 

Woah, that looks bad.

 

Yeah. Although to be honest I’m not a huge fan of the artwork in general. One thing I’m finding interesting, though, is that I wasn’t able to find a high-res image of the artwork anywhere online so maybe he submitted what he had? Lol who knows.

On another note, I didn’t notice this until someone pointed it out in another RK thread on Reddit (I just knew it sounded familiar), but the piano melody in Higher Power from this record sounds a lot like Flower from Air for Free. I thought that was kind of cool.

 

Yeah, looking at this Tweet from Matt, it looks like something that is a drawing (particularly the background).

Maybe it was intentional and that's all they've got?

That's a cool little bit of information about Higher Power. I think a lot of the vibe of this release matches Air For Free.

 

I've taken some time to digest this release before commenting but I'm happy to say that I love it. The only thing that caught me off guard was I was expecting this to be more piano driven like the original Earthquakes songs. However, the quality of the record more than makes up to for that (although I would love some more piano Thiessen one day).

Love the use of horns and Ellie's vocals. Darren King did a solid job too with the production.

 

I had a conversation with a friend the other day about how there is hardly any piano on the album at all, and how unexpected that was.

So cool that he subverted expectations, and as mentioned before, those horns just bring so much to the album that I wouldn't have expected. Not to mention the prowess of DK on production/drums and Ellie's vocals.

Just very cool and unexpected.

Also, still down for some Thiessen piano tracks. Haha

 

I think Relient K ended up doing a lot of what MT&TE originally set out to do so this album didn’t really need to, if that makes sense.

 

Which Relient K songs would you say did what MT&TE originally set out to do? Just out of interest. I was expecting this record to have more Empty House vibes I think.

 

Only two that are confirmed Earthquakes songs are I Hate Christmas Parties and Faking My Own Suicide. (That I know of)

I’m sure other songs he originally conceived as Earthquakes ended up as Relient K songs in one form or another.

 

Oh yes I know about those songs! I thought the person was talking about vibes/ideas - I originally saw Earthquakes as a stripped down side project for a lead singer of a more pop punky rock band.

 

I remember him saying at one point that when Relient K started implanting piano more heavily he no longer felt like he needed to make the solo stuff as MT&tE. Maybe that’s he revived it for this record, because it’s a sound much different from RK.

 

It’s funny because to me this record sounds more like Relient K than I expected - it’s like Relient K with horns and a female vocalist. But I do understand what you mean in terms of Thiessen’s perspective. Just glad we got a release this good!

 

Me too! Since it’s got his fingerprints all over it I agree that it sounds like Relient K in a lot of ways. I just meant that it has more of a folk/singer-songwriter vibe.

 

Yes that's true.

 

That's what I was expecting/hoping for too. I love the piano and horns in the previous MT&TE songs and thought it would go that direction. Still love the new album though, well worth the wait

 

Seeing him on November 8 in Lexington, KY. Pretty stoked.

 

Tonight is the night