Brian Fallon - Sleepwalkers (February 9, 2018) Album • Page 31

I can't get over how much I love this album. Have listened 6 or 7 times through already and have never liked any Gaslight Anthem albums. May have to give the band another shot.

Still need to listen to Painkillers, too.

 

Watson is tremendous, and the entire album is so, so good. Etta James and Sleepwalkers have also been on near-permanent repeat this weekend... I enjoyed Painkillers a lot, but it didn't immediately strike home like this one does.

 

I think if you like this album, you’ll love his other work.

I’m oddly disappointed in this album as it feels like a retread to me of some of his other highlights, but regardless it is still a very good album.

Painkillers is just a fantastic album with production I adore (Butch Walker produced).

The little bits of ear candy on that album are wonderful.

 

Agreed about Painkillers. It’s an incredible sounding album. I’d also like to nominate the solo in Honey Magnolia as one of the prettiest guitar solos ever.

 

I'm comfortable saying that this is Brian's best work since Handwritten. Solid front to back, Proof of Life is really the only song that doesn't do anything for me. But about half of this I would already consider essentials in his music - Etta James, Her Majesty's Service, Little Nightmares, My Name Is the Night, and Watson. Such a solid album. I see this being near the top of my list at the end of 2018.

 

I'm about 5 listens deep, as usual, there are ZERO bad songs. If I had to pick my least favorites thus far it would be, gun to my head, Proof Of Life and Come Wander With Me, although I will freely admit that will probably change. Dig the verses in Come Wander ("I pretended that my daddy was a bank rob-ber") but not the chorus as much.

Don't like Etta James quite as much as you guys do, very good song but there are others I just like better.

Love the guitars on Her Majesty's, such a cool little acoustic riff.

Feel like songs 7-12 are all complete hammers and that is my favorite part of the album.

Hard to pick favorites but Neptune, Watson, Little Nightmares, and See You On The Other Side lead the pack probably, and Color Me Black is great too.

Hard to compare Forget Me Not since I've heard it so many times, but in the long run that will be one of the best on the album too, certainly was the right choice as single, most catchy radio-ish song on there.

I think overall it's probably a little better than Painkillers, but it's close.

 

This is almost exactly the opposite of how I feel. Painkillers to me is still a great album but I find Sleepwalkers to be vastly superior. The little bits of ear candy thing applies perfectly to Sleepwalkers to my mind and not Painkillers really at all. I have come to see that for me Brian Fallon and Ted Hutt in the studio together are a match made in heaven. I was actually let down by the collaboration of Brian Fallon and Butch Walker in the studio.

I will admit that it could entirely be due to the fact that I am such an enormous fan of both people. I think anything short of an all-time masterpiece coming from those two working together was going to disappoint me a tiny bit. Honestly, I was expecting something along the lines of Sleepwalkers from them.

 

Etta James is absolutely fucking my world up, I can only listen to it sparingly. I love the way this man can effortlessly write songs about heartbreak with enough personal detail that it is clearly his story while still leaving enough room for me to apply it to myself until I want to die

 

Anyone else get a "Red At Night" vibe from See You On the Other Side ?

 

it has to be a direct homage, at least those opening strums.

 

Big fan of the avatar

 

This is the best part of this forum ... civilized discussion with opposing viewpoints.

Honestly I’m so glad people are loving the album. I don’t know if it will ever match Painkillers to me, but who am I haha?

I am happy for Brian. I obviously don’t know him but from what I can tell he more than deserves the recognition.

Lord knows I will still spin the heck out of this album. I’ve already listened twice today. Might just be a more slow burn for me personally.

Painkillers just hit at the perfect time in my life.

But still glad to see the praise for Brian

 

I feel like Painkillers and Sleepwalkers are two sides of the same coin - musically, thematically, lyrically. They seem like a perfect pair, like a volume 1 and volume 2. I hear a ton of Painkillers in Sleepwalkers, but in a good way; it's like the Empire Strikes Back to A New Hope.

For me, I have a hard time at this point even treating them separately. They just seem like a matched pair, and if you listen to them back to back (something I encourage), they flow one right into the other brilliantly.

 

the inarguable x-factor.

other than Handwritten, every record Brian has released since 59 Sound have felt like they were mine. this is largely because i am almost always a lovesick meandering buffoon, and it only gets worse and hits harder every year i grow older. i'm feeling like my dream of being married young is dead in the water and, man, some of this cuts like a knife.

 

I say it every album, I'll say it again, the man has NO ABILITY to write and release a bad song. It's just absolutely uncanny.

Best songwriter alive (or dead).

Even Tom Petty wrote some stinkers once in awhile......not many........but some.

 

Painkillers might legitimately be my favorite album ever. It's my favorite work from a Mount Rushmore songwriter, and is at least top 5-6 ever.

But even with that caveat, I totally see Sleepwalkers being on its level. It's stunningly good.

 

Let me put this another way. If some other artist came out with a new album, and it had songs like Desire, Red In The Morning, Stray Paper, and the others that I think are bottom-tier Fallon overall...........I'd still go buy that album and listen to the shit out of it, and become a big fan of that band. And those are his "lesser" songs. It's unbelievable, and frankly, he's getting MORE consistent with age rather than less. These 2 solo albums are ridiculously consistent in quality, through all 24 songs.

Hoping some legendary B-Sides will pop up soon too.

 

Yeah, the "Honey Magnolia" solo is so lovely.

 

Proof of Life is coming along at a reaaaal opportune time when we are thinking about what our wedding song will be. What a song.

 

Yeah, I don't want to sound like a broken record, but any "criticism" I have for this man's work - like saying I was a little disappointed in Painkillers - comes with the huge caveat that he is insanely consistent quality wise and really prolific too. He just doesn't make bad music. The amount of incredible songs and albums he has released at this point is astounding.

If someone else were to release the album Painkillers, someone who I hadn't obsessively followed their every move and listened to their weird, obscure side-project who never actually officially released anything (MATZ), and the producer wasn't someone whose work I also deeply love and has made some of the most incredible music of my lifetime, it would just be fantastic album to me. Any 'disappointment' I had in it is/was more on my end and in expecting something they didn't make and going out of my way to listen to too much of it ahead of time.

 

I hear you. I remember being bummed that I knew 7-8 out of 12 of the songs before it came out as well. I stayed more "pristine" this time and am glad I did.

 

My girlfriend and I talked about this yesterday. We know it will have to be a Brian Fallon song as Gaslight was the ONE band we both adored before we met.

We discussed these:

-See You on the Other Side
-Mae
-Proof of Life
-The Blues, Mary live version at Crossroad
-Once Upon A Time cover

 

Yeah, we share a lot of the same musical preferences, but Gaslight and Frank Turner are two of the artists we both love equally, and I had considered Mae as well. See You on the Other Side is a good call as well. Would love a Fallon song to be our wedding song haha

 

See You On The Other Side is a good choice

 

Do Mae and invite me. God I love that song.