Armor for Sleep Talk New Music

Did people not like Smile For Them? I still remember going to Target to buy that album on Halloween. Stoked about possible new music.

 

Well whatever it is from this band, it'll perform well in a way of its own. Of course I liked Smile For Them as well, would love to have more!

 

Yeah. I loved Smile For Them.

 

I think a lot of people didn't like Smile for Them (It's my favorite AFS record by a mile.) But the band hated the record because of what the label did to them// how they made them re-write and re-record it.

 

There are a few songs on smile for them I really did like but altogether found it a stark step down from their other records.

a lot of old scene bands have released new material in the vein of their old stuff and while it’s often good, usually doesn’t leave a strong lasting impression. If we do get new music I hope it’s really fresh and has some lasting value.

 

The first band that comes to mind is The Beautiful Mistake. Was so happy for some new music, but it ended up being a huge letdown.

 

Run Right back in was one of the best most annoying songs ever! I'll just wait until you leave... And run Right back in! F u man!

I know people don't agree, but if they make new music I really wish it's modern.

Their anniversary record was what made me start my company.

 

What's your company? ;D I actually always enjoyed "Run Right Back In", what's annoying about it?

What happened with that? Did they talk about it somewhere? Now I put it on on Spotify and I see it's marked as a 'standard version', don't know why as well.

For me it's definitely far from my fav, which is WTDWYAD (probably most common), but still had some great tracks and I had it on my mp3 player for a long time, lots of memories.

 

Ben has said on several podcasts that they brought the record to the record label and they were like "this stinks" "change this" "this song sucks" So they basically re-recording a new record that Sire wanted. That's why they named it "Smile for Them"

 

That sucks, probably happened pretty often with bigger labels. Still a good album though! The remarks on the industry, even with the title like you're stating - surely visible back then as well.

 

I hope they go all in on with another concept album.

 

I really loved The Beautiful Mistake EP, wished it was a whole album to be honest.

 

From what I remember, there was a pretty long wait for Smile for them and then it wasn't received well on top of the stuff with the label. I loved the two records but I wasn't hyped at all for that record when it finally came out. The last time I saw them before they broke up was opening up for Saosin in a pretty small venue.

2008 was also just a weird time for this style of music. It felt like all of a sudden, people just stopped giving a fuck about it. As an example, Senses Fails third album came out the same year and Buddy mentioned that his income went from like 100k to 30k just like that.

 

That sucks! What's funny is that it really felt like a long wait for that record back then, now I see it's only a bit more than 2 years (WTDWYAD was from Feb 2005 and SFT was from Oct 2007). Now the gap between lots of bands' records pretty often stands for 3-4 years and I'm not sure if anybody makes a big deal about it.

 

In retrospect, they probably should've recorded the record while still touring. I think it was more so that AFS dropped off the radar while they spent a vast amount of time making the 3rd record. They pretty much disappeared, people forgot about them, and instead of striking while the iron was hot, the record label kept telling them to make new songs.

I was burnt out on them as well. To this day, still, I wouldn't say I like Car Underwater because of how often I heard people in my friend group playing that song. Armor for sleep went from "my band" to everyone's band when WTDWYD came out. Looking back, I thought they were bigger than they were and compared them to bands like TBS, who were exploding at the time and just lost interest.

 

Oh I get it. It's a much different experience for me here in Poland - doesn't affect me that much if bands don't tour. Most times when a band releases something after a while it's just out of nowhere for me (if I don't follow them on social media etc.). Sometimes it amazes me when I look it up and see how much time would pass, for example when Hidden In Plain View came back with an EP after all the years of silence. I could never go see AFS or HIPV play live. Though I did see Taking Back Sunday in Germany, which also shows they were indeed pretty much a bigger band with bigger tours.

Ps. and my band while starting out used to play a cover of "Car Underwater" hahah (and we even performed "Walking at Night, Alone" at my high school. It was really bad hahh).