The Wonder Years - Sister Cities (April 6, 2018) Album • Page 220

I think all five of the band's canon releases are good, but I have an attachment to the trilogy and how they're written together so tightly from a narrative standpoint. No Closer to Heaven and Sister Cities have their own production issues, but the songwriting and musicianship is still top-notch.

 

I love this album but it hit at such a hard time in my life that it’s tough to revisit.

I find myself going back to NCTH most often. It has a lot of problems, but the highs are so good. Dan has posted on IG stories about the now-fabled remixed and remastered NCTH project as recently as this year, and if that ever comes out, it’ll most likely be my favorite TWY release.

 

Sister Cities is featured in Forza Horizon 4 and I've always wondered if the mix given to the devs was different because it does sound different on my sound bar when I played both the record and track in game back to back.

 

Wait a second, they've talked about remixing No Closer to Heaven?

 

This would make my day if it was true. I've been wanting this since it came out!

 

They've never formally announced anything, I get the impression that it's more of a "if the timing is right" kind of thing. If memory serves, it's something Nick has indicated he's fiddled with--I remember him mentioning it on AP.net (or maybe here?) years ago. Dan recently brought it up during one of the IG story Q&As he's been doing every so often.

 

Pretty sure that’s what Nick was talking about here.

 

My problem is they don’t need three guitarists and with the poor mixing of NCTH and to a lesser extent SC, it just meshes together into a block of noise

 

Given the fact that they can't tour for a while still, it'd be pretty cool if they did a remix/master of NCTH. I'd buy a new vinyl copy and everything.

 

Is it controversial for TGG to be my favorite? It easily is. NCTH has some of my favorite tracks (Cardinals and Cigarettes & Saints) but it's a real drag through the second half. Sister Cities was definitely a return to form of sorts for me, but I still don't feel like they executed the more rock oriented tracks as well as they did pop punk on TGG. But I can understand why they don't want to write in that style anymore.

 

TGG and Suburbia are still my favorites. Sister Cities was good but never really hooked me in to the same extent as the others.

 

TGG has their best songs on it but Sister Cities is the only one where I'd be interested in listening to the whole album.

 

TGG is peak Wonder Years for me

 

Always have found this band to be ok at best, with their better material being the pop punk storytelling style in the first few records, the two most recent I find to be pretty bad

 

I always appreciate a band trying something new, which they finally did after staying in an extremely small lane for a long time, but I just didn't think it was executed well

 

No Closer to Heaven needs to be altered to have Cigarettes and Saints as the closer or penultimate track

 

Hell no! TGG is without doubt their best album.

 

Suburbia is my favorite, TGG is the best.

 

Why would that be controversial, TGG is definitely their best hehe ;D I listened to Sister Cities in full yesterday for the first time in a long time, and it's still quite cool, but if it wasn't for the conversation in here, I'd probably listen to something else. Obviously it's good to go back to albums like that one though - it's not bad at all by any means.

 

glad that we all are putting TGG and SC on S Tier :)

 

I agree that that album also sounds bad but in my opinion NCTH sounds a lot worse.

 

My fav is still Suburbia. I feel like they nailed that pop punk sound with that release (and TGG, although I think Suburbia has more peaks). NCTH and Sister Cities I still like a lot but they are darker and honestly if I wanna listen to dark rock music I have so many other options. If I wanna listen to thrashy, lyrics-forward pop punk TWY's earlier records are pretty much my go to.

 

Also it's probably just me but the production on Sister Cities is okay, what I struggle with is Soupy's voice sounding like he is on the verge of tears the whole time. Not saying it doesn't fit with the music/themes etc. Just that I find it distracting. I think he conveyed just as much emotion without whimpering and squeaking so much on previous releases.

 

his verge of tears delivery has been a big detractor for me since, like, the first Aaron West record probably. I feel like that’s when it started to get particularly noticeable.

 

Makes their music borderline unlistenable at times