Third Eye Blind Band • Page 7

Apparently they just finished it the other night.

 

Saw them in London last night. Stephan said the EP will be released in two weeks.

 

God dammit, haha. He said August. Should've known it'd be late.

 

Considering this is Stephen, we'll be lucky to get this in the current decade. I'm not too worried if it gets delayed from August to September.

 

Haha, there just wasn't a reason to even announce it this time unless it was done.

 

Ha, well yeah. But I've come to expect this from Stephen. How long did Ursa Major have a title before we finally heard it? How many times did he say their fifth album was "coming soon"? I think he just can't help himself.

 

truuueeee.

 

Very true. I wasn't even mad when Ursa Minor never came to fruition, because he sounded a little tired and out of ideas by the end of Ursa Major.

 

I for one, loved Ursa Major haha.

 

I also loved Ursa Major, but I'm okay that they took their time to do something else. He seemed really happy and rejuvenated at the Dopamine shows last year.

 

Ursa is so good

 

It's got good tracks - "Bonfire", "Sharp Knife" and "Dao of St. Paul" are among their best. And any Third Eye Blind album after 6 years is a treat.

Ending with "Carnival Barker" was not a great idea, and a lot of the tracks tend to run together - if you play "About To Break", "Why Can't You Be" and "Monotov's Private Opera" in a row, you might think it was one long mediocre song.

 

o.g. 7 minute carnival barker would've been a great closer

also "why can't you be" is my favorite sj lyric ever

 

Monotov is top 3 for me, the ending trio minus Carnival is perfect

 

"Water Landing" is a top five Third Eye Blind song.

 

What is this? I've never heard it.

Disagree hard. If you're looking for a perfect trio to close, you're thinking of the self-titled album. ;)

Fair enough. It's a little dull musically for me but lyrically it really is fantastic.

I think my only real beef with Ursa Major is that Stephen decided to record a lot more on acoustic guitar than he ever did on their first three albums, and he's not nearly a creative enough player to pull it off - I found the songs came off too mellow and disinteresting. When he writes creatively around the acoustic guitar, as on "Wake For Young Souls", "Bonfire", "Say It" or "All The Souls", he nails it.

 

re: "water landing" being a top five 3eb song: that is true

 

the quality sucks hard but

 

this isn't the official story or anything but i'm guessing sj wanted to write actual lyrics for the full "carnival barker" and put it on ursa minor, which obv never happened. it rules as an instrumental too though

 

Wow, that is exponentially more interesting than the album version.

I don't understand the decisions they make sometimes - Red Summer Sun is another track they did a disservice to by cutting it short, that outro is ridic.

 

Bonfire is my fucking ring tone. No one even has ringtones anymore, but I do...cause I fucking love that song.

 

When I was having writers block, I thought about writing lyrics/vocal melody to the Carnival Barker instrumental, and then not telling my bandmates at all just to see what the music they came up with sounded like around it.

 

Really looking forward to the new EP, even if Cop vs. Phone Girl wasn't really my thing.

 

"Sherri is a stoner" sounds so great

 

I've been holding off on checking out the live/bootleg or whatever. After Ursa, I realize that I get expectations for their songs after hearing them live, and then I nitpick the studio versions.

And, for what it's worth, Cop vs. Phone Girl is really catchy melodically - maybe their catchiest song in a decade. Lyrically though...I don't know. It's not like I have a problem with the message. I just feel like it's recapping a news story that I know well. I'd rather hear lyrics that leave it to more interpretation rather than applying it to a true story/event at one moment in time. That's just me though. Jumper, for instance was great because of the message and it was inspired by Jenkin's experiences, but he used that inspiration and left listeners some room to apply it to whatever they experienced in life. It doesn't feel timestamped. It's timeless in a way. Just my two cents. I'm sure I'm in the minority.