The Dangerous Summer - Gravity (June 21, 2024) • Page 22

Huh, I actually think War Paint beats the “every song sounds the same” criticism more than Reach for the Sun does.

 

I just prefer the less aggressive sound of RFTS over War Paint. Both great though.

 

War Paint is def darker than RFTS but both equally great. Two sides of a coin.

 

RFTS carried the torch after TSL first disbanded.

 

On repeated listens this album is really good actually.

 

Mother Nature sounds like a band being pushed to deliver a cohesive and complete piece of art as if their career depended on it. Everything since then feels like a band that wrote some songs and slapped them together to put out an ep/album hoping that one of the songs takes off by being placed on a Spotify playlist (as if their career depends on it). I’m not saying there haven’t been some great songs since Mother Nature, but just pointing out how it feels to me.

 

Listened to Mother Nature in full for the first time in a minute and really my immediate first thought was: “man these songs SOUND so good”

There’s something I can’t describe well, but Coming Home and Gravity just sound … off? Like AJ’s vocals just sound flat? Slightly off? Kinda like a tv slightly out of focus. Just there’s something off there which is overpoweringly much better on Mother Nature

 

The vocals on Coming Home and Gravity at times sound very compressed and sometimes buried in the mix a little. As compared to say Starting Over on MN where they are loud, wide and front and center. But a song like Goodbye also has a prominent Vocal as well tho

But these last 2 albums the vocals are seated deeper in the mix more than ever for them

 

protip if you're listening to this on spotify go into settings -> playback, switch the volume level to loud, then toggle off "enable audio normalization". allows you to have the decibels this album was meant to be experienced in and makes everything on that platform sound better in general I sadly just discovered this

 

It dawned on me that AJ is John Popper (Blues Traveler) meets AvA-era Tom.

 

Did these guys ever get grief for using SoCal imagery and lyrics when they're an East Coast band?

A bunch of bands that weren't from Seattle adopted the grunge aesthetic when it was hot, but I'm not sure I've ever seen a band go to these lengths without being based in Southern California.

EDIT: I am not saying that they should be criticized for using another location for inspiration. I am also not saying that they can't do such a thing. My grunge example was meant to show that this sort of thing is common. I merely wanted to know if such criticism ever existed. I've since learned that AJ lived in California for five years, which negates the question entirely.

 

I wouldn’t even call Baltimore east coast either.

 

Baltimore's Camden Yards serves Crab Mac n Cheese Dogs. If that's not East Coast, then I don't know what is.

 

I don't think they started doing it till AJ moved to California for 5 years

And Baltimore is absolutely east coast lol

 

I'm listening to Mother Nature for the first time in probably two or three years and it's even better than I remembered! I've always liked it but thought it was a touch overrated because to me it doesn't really touch those first two records, but it's still very accomplished and the production is great.

Shame about Gravity.

 

I agree with Mitch - I don’t think it’s that close to the first two records without Sam’s help. The production choices take the songs to another level.

 

Yes! Thank you!

 

Since he lived in LA for a time and Blind Ambition literally is about sorta reminiscing about his time living in LA I would have to say it doesn’t bother me in the slightest

 

Yeah, this band (and their former members) has done plenty of things that bother me over the years, but singing about LA is absolutely not one of them, ha.

 

This has grown on me quite substantially, though I still have it quite a ways below Reach/War Paint/MN.

 

get grief for using imagery of a place they aren’t from lol be fucking serious for one second and read what you said back

 

we should focus that energy into something worth bullying

Like when he wrote a song about shooting rope

 

lol wtf song is that

 

Oh, I didn't mean to imply that I cared all that much. The grunge example was me trying to say that this sort of thing is nothing new. I was just asking out of curiosity. Admittedly, I did not know that AJ lived in CA for a period of time. I never would've asked the question had I known.

 

(Sighs.) I was only asking if it was ever commented on or critiqued. I did not mean to suggest that they should "get grief" or that they can't use another locale for creative direction. My grunge example was me acknowledging that this has been done time and time again.