Circa Survive Band • Page 112

it is weird to listen to your old music and have such a disparity in quality between it all. nostalgia can be a very powerful force but it is funny when you look back at something and have it completely fall apart lol. as a teen i listened to some total hot garbage but also tons of stuff that i still think is legitimately great today. bands that were total goofy tropes alongside bands that are 1 in a million unique. circa is in the latter category.

 

best songs in no particular order:

Suspending Disbelief
The Glorious Nosebleed
Bird Sounds
At Night It Gets Worse
Stay
I'll Find a Way
My Only Friend
Only the Sun
Descensus
Your Friends are Gone
Stop the Fuckin' Car
House of Leaves
Kicking Your Crosses Down
Living Together
Holding Someone's Hairback
Lustration

 

JUT > OLG > AMU > DES > VW > ADAL(D) > BSN > APP

 

i dunno, i have a few playlists in my apple music that are meant to reflect a certain time of my life, and even that goofy shit that might not hold up if i heard it for the first time today still holds a special place in my heart and remains enjoyable for me to listen to. thats just me tho. i mean yeah we all have shit that was straight up embarrassing and even we wince when we think about it and would never listen to it again. but for the most part, i enjoy listening to the shit from my teenage music dsicovery years whether it holds up or not.

 

yeah some of it is like taco bell. bad but somehow good.

 

i love taco bell and avenged sevenfold in basically the same way haha

 

It is time they gave us a new record!

 

yeah i thought the stage was a fantastic course correction following two absolutely abysmal records, but that a discussion for another thread lol

 

I feel this. I felt the random urge to listen to Sick Puppies of all bands the other day lmao… had a strong kick of middle school nostalgia even though I can obviously see how basic those songs are nowadays.

 

You describe that feeling perfectly. I think it’s the reason why so many of us tend to say our favorite album from a band is the one we discovered them with. I remember the first time I had that feeling was Coheed’s NWFT. I loved GA to such a degree that any follow up had no chance. Also the way Coheed teases and hypes didn’t help.

 

another album i had a completely different experience with than most fans haha, i absolutely fucking loved NWFT and thought it killed on every level and remains one of my top 3 or 4 in their discog. but, i was about 15 when that dropped which is when the aforementioned a7x was my favorite band and what i listened to 60% of the time so the over the top rock n roll/classic heavy metal feeling it had was very much my shit.

 

I discovered Coheed in the YOTBR era and have to say... from a perspective uncontaminated by nostalgia, NWFT is a cataclysmic dropoff from GA, so don't beat yourself up

But seriously, I know nostalgia biases all of us... yet even in my early 30s, I can get super pumped for new shit if it's up to snuff. Hum and Failure each released a record within the past few years that I've played like 100x and consider right up with their best ever. This, in spite of listening to their 90s work like 1000x over the past 20 years, and having fallen head over heels for it as a teenager. Unfortunately, that's the exception, not the rule. I think the harsh reality is that many? most? bands really do lose some fire and passion beyond a certain age, understandably. Our nostalgia just further amplifies a dropoff that's already real.

 

as someone who considers that hum album one of the best albums ive ever heard and had never really listened to them at all, its definitely not your nostalgia there lol. but yeah thats generally not the way it goes for most bands that have a storied history like that putting out new material.

 

on a revisit of the discog recently i realized sophos was right about nwft and always was

 

like i don't have nostalgia for it either, i considered it a disappointment at the time

actually it rocks

 

i always knew i was on a different wavelength when everyone was like wow the running free sucks and i was like really ive listened to a hundred times and sing it to myself all day but thats cool too...

 

A Favor House Atlantic is a bop. never could get into anything else.

 

Fool

 

Deftones
Coheed
Thursday


My holy trinity

 

Yeah it’s definitely a winner in my book these days. I just had unrealistic expectations. I wanted The End Complete to be The Willing Well but crazier, and it was…. not. Saying it rocks though is a good summation of the entire album.

 

I think Juturna might be the biggest 180 degree turn I’ve made for an opinion about an album. I think my teenage self was bummed it didn’t sound like Saosin’s EP (since that’s where I knew Anthony from). I was so disappointed. I gave it another listen a few months later and was blown away at how good it was. I have no idea how I heard it so differently the first time.

Jumping on the coheed chain, NWFT still never clicked after how great coheed’s first 3 albums were. I will do a discog listen leading up to Vaxis 2 and see if it hits differently

 

I don’t know if we’ve ever talked about this before, but it’s wild how you and I got into the band right around the same time and that I think our album rankings are very similar if I’m connecting the dots based on your posts in this thread haha

 

Just finished up with revisiting both Juturna and OLG yesterday, as well as songs and demos associated with those eras. I mentioned before that Saosin was my gateway into this scene and led me to getting into Circa Survive. I remember finally listening to some Circa songs in the fall of 2009 and they just weren’t clicking for me at the time, but I kept coming back around because I loved TTN and I wanted to give this band time to click. I’m so glad I asked for Juturna and OLG on cd for Christmas that year because anything that wasn’t clicking before immediately started to. I fell madly in love with this band at that moment. The atmospheric, psychedelic, progressive rock-tinged post hardcore sound was so unique and enthralling to me and I’ve only come to love those albums even more over time.

I absolutely lose my mind for the odd time signatures in The Glorious Nosebleed and the one-two punch of Stop the Fucking Car and We’re All Thieves is one of the best in their discography (the latter of which has become one of my favorite Circa songs to date). The guitar work across both albums is incredible, but especially on OLG. I’ll never forget some of the riffs and progressions I hear on Living Together, In the Morning and Amazing, The Difference Between, and Semi Constructive Criticism. The rhythm section of Steve and Nick is absolutely locked in on The Greatest Lie, The Difference Between, and Mandala. The closing one-two punch of Close Your Eyes to See and Your Friends are Gone is just phenomenal, particularly the latter.

If I have any complaints about these albums, it’s more with what made the album versus what didn’t. I wish Suspending Disbelief made it onto Juturna right after Oh, Hello like it was originally intended to. I also wish House of Leaves was the closer on Juturna with Meet Me in Montauk as the hidden track. Considering what I’ve read the band say about Carry Us Away, I wish 1,000 Witnesses made it onto OLG in its place. Despite those desires, I still think these albums are fantastic. These albums hold such a special place in my heart and there’s certainly some nostalgia that plays a role in that, but I genuinely believe that these albums would still hit if released today.

Juturna favorite songs:
1. We’re All Thieves
2. Stop the Fucking Car
3. House of Leaves
4. The Glorious Nosebleed

OLG favorite songs:
1. Your Friends are Gone
2. Living Together
3. The Difference Between…
4. Semi Constructive Criticism

Excited to be revisiting all things BSN and VW today!

 

I should listen to Appendage more, Stare Like You'll Stay hitting really hard rn

 

I just listened to BSN and its demos last night/this morning and am about to listen to Appendage in a few minutes actually