Noah Gundersen - A Pillar of Salt (Oct. 8, 2021) Album • Page 3

I will say, White Noise is the only album of his that doesn’t kind of peter out at the end for me. The last two songs are such a huge emotional payoff.

 

Dry year is one of my favorites

 

You're not a fan of Kamikaze? I think that's in the upper tier of songs on Lover.

 

Agree with most of the sentiments about white noise as a whole, but My favorite part of that era was watching him play basically the entire album front to back on tour with a small acoustic break in the middle just such an epic show

 

Kamikaze was by far my least favorite song on the album till he released the alt version

 

I definitely don’t dislike that song, but I find that and the Ledges and Ghost closers very similar and lower tier on their respective albums. But I also just think the first half of Lover is basically perfect, and don’t like the second half nearly as much.

 

but but but Wild Horses

 

"Wild Horses" and "All My Friends" are the two songs on the second half that I love as much as I love six of the first seven.

 

Ledges closes out super strong imo. Last three songs are three of his best!

 

Nah, I have to agree that he usually misses with his closers. Which is weird because the end of WHITE NOISE is its strongest section.

 

Wait, I forgot about So What. I might have to disagree with everything

 

The run from "First Defeat" to "Dying Now" is fucking incredible. But "Time Moves Quickly" is the only song on that album that I've never truly loved. It's a nice enough song, but it's more of a post-script/epilogue/end credits to me than a truly engaging closer. Whereas "Send the Rain" is the song that really hammers home the thematic heft of White Noise for me. That's a fucking closer.

 

“So What” is a very good song that I think is considerably stronger in its acoustic form on the A Raven and a Dove EP.

 

I really like Time Moves Quickly but this is a good description. It definitely has a more cinematic “heavy part of a film or tv series” or closing credits kind of sound than the rest of the album.

Lots of times album have songs that fit as closers and the artists/bands slip in one more song. Back in the day that used to just be a hidden track. Think Manchester Orchestra’s “The River” to have “Jimmy, He Whispers” after with a little gap inbetween.

 

The thing with “The River” is it’s a perfect closer as is!

 

It is. Just saying, that sometimes bands throw in that extra song.

If Dying Now was the last song closer, and Time Moves Quickly was a secret song like Jimmy He Whispers is to The River, would you like that set up better?

 

I think that might be his intention, having a heavy hitting penultimate song followed by a mellower coda. Heartbreaker is also the perfect closer on CTG, but I always forget about Planted Seed coming after it. Dry Year & Send the Rain was a reversal of that to a more traditional big closer, while Lover kind of returns to that “false ending” pattern.

I love most of those coda songs almost as much as the bigger one before them.

 

I think I’d like it about the same. “Dying Now” doesn’t necessarily feel like a closer to me (though I really love that song), and I’m not generally a huge fan of hidden tracks.

I think he definitely likes ending albums that way! Those tracks are usually just among my least favorites.

 

I hate hidden tracks so much, haha. Especially in the digital music era. Like, who has time for a 16-minute "song" with 4 minutes of music at the beginning and 2 at the end with nothing but silence between

 

Nothing brings me more joy than discovering hidden track one audio.

 

I agree that hidden tracks have no place really anymore. Lots of albums do that really different last song like an epilogue or cinematic feel.

 

Yeah, I guess it's cool the first time, but when I know what's coming and have to sit through three or four songs' worth of silence to get to it, it gets old fast. In instances where it's worth it (thinking of Around the Fur, O, The Big Come Up), I usually just cut it up in iTunes into two different tracks.

 

I'll never forget the time I fell asleep listening to Sticks and Stones when it first came out and suddenly the chaotic weird hidden track stuff started and scared the shit out of me

 

At least end-of-the-album hidden tracks are better than pre-gap hidden tracks at the beginning of the CD.

 

Like Dashboard Confessional did