Dance Gavin Dance - Artificial Selection (June 8, 2018) Album • Page 43

Tree village and happiness are two of the best!

 

I respect your opinion, but

I don’t trust your thoughts anymore

 

Tree Village is goat

 

It's fine, I'm just not a fan of those creaky, drippy, meandering melodies (Like the beginning of Tree Village, Shark Dad and the chorus of Robot With Human Hair 2 1/2)

 

Don’t Tell Dave’s mere existence confounds me to this day.

 

Ngl Shelf Life is one of the worst songs on AS2 and I’m so sad to say that. Kurt’s capable of so much better

 

I love Pounce Bounce

 

When the rankings start.

 

DBM
Mothership
Inst Grat
Deathstar
DBM II
Art Sec
Happiness
AS

TBH Deathstar through Happiness are pretty much all equally liked.

 

I’m bored so I did a track by track. This record has grown on me a ton.

Son of Robot: I used to think the lead guitar in the first verse was awkward and it kinda took me out of the song. It’s grown on me, as has the rest of the song. It’s not the most exciting Dance tune but “it’s the way that she combs my hair” has become one of my favorite tilian moments.

Midnight Crusade: if there’s such thing as a phoned in DGD song, I think this is it. Fortunately that’s not much of a problem, it’s just not much of a highlight. Everyone sounds good and does their part, just nothin really stands out until the outro. Good stuff.

Suspended: my first and current favorite. Probably my favorite guitar work on the album, especially in the first verse. Massive chorus, the vibrato is perfect.

Care: another that originally bored me a bit. Chorus melody is what grew on me the most. Last third of the song is phenomenal. I adore the whistle that brings the outro in, love the god damn, love the dance-y guitar. Fantastic work.

Count Bassy: the first half of this and Care are interchangeable to me. Outro is less impressive but I like the da da das.

Flash: my other first and current favorite. Chorus reminds me of frozen one, my top DGD song. Love the simplified but super ear-wormy guitar during jon’s Parts.

Rattler: really didn’t like it on first listen. Still the main skipper for me. Would like it a lot more if it didn’t have the weird bassy and asses in battle parts. I like when Jon’s songs sound more serious. Tilian’s melodies save the song, especially at the end.

Shelf life: hate to say it but I think kurt’s a really bad vocalist. This song I like quite a bit however. I like that he’s not just meandering, I like the repetition in the lyrics. His voice sounds like JC at times. This song may have Jon’s best screams on it. Love how snarly and melodic they sound, it’s fantastic. Tilian coming in with the soaring bridge is another highlight.

Slouch: I know I referred to midnight crusade as a phoned in DGD song, but they also have another very specific type of song structure/vibe that comes up a lot and it’s in this song. It reminds me of like half of the songs on IG as well as deception and a couple others. Idk how to describe it. All that said its a fun listen.

Story of my bros: I’ve cooled on this one a bit as most of the singing is hit or miss for me until we get to the he bridge which I love. It’s a fun quick singalong. Adds some diversity.

Hair song: thought this song was too silly at first but now I think the interplay between Jon and the guitars is brilliant. Tilians chorus brings it down a bit for me.

Gospel Burnout: I like that they tried a more vibe-y chill song but tilians melodies in this are a slog to get thru. I’d like it several times more if Tilian changed the “shit down” to a DO-own instead of DOOooown. That make sense? Jon’s oh oh oh are cool. “Do they even know what it’s like in the real world” is executed lovely.

Bloodsucker: I think this one goes on too long but I love how angry Tilian sounds.

Evaporate: love every second of this one. I think their closers are usually more exciting and intense musically but the guest spot and outro more than make up for it. Guest vocals sound perfect and the references are executed epically, if a bit forced.



That doesn’t all sound like a ringing endorsement but I do like this a lot. I don’t think it’s nearly as risky as they made us expect but I’ve come to appreciate the diversity in it even if I don’t think it’s as creative as mothership. It’s also helped me realize I’d love for them to write a more angry sounding record.

Lastly:

Mothership > acceptance speech > DBM > AS2/IG > DBM2 > deathstar > happiness

 

the whackest of all rankings:

Happiness
Deathstar
DBMII
Artificial Selection
DBM
Acceptance Speech
Instant Gratification
Mothership

 

Yeah Kurt has just been meandering than a mofo ever since after Happiness, and Shelf Life is no different.

Deathstar and Happiness still have most of this bands best vocal melodies. He was phenomenal there. Tillian is also fantastic at that and he has lots of songs scattered across that are on par.

 

S/T
Mothership
DBM
Happiness
AS1
IG
AS2
DBM2

Whatever I Say

 

Burning Down the Nicotine Armoire pt.2 still among my favorite songs by the band.

 

Mothership
Happiness
IG
AS1 = AS2
S/T
DMI
DMII

 

Happiness
AS1
AS2//IG
DMII
DMI
Mothership
S/T

 

Jeez midnight crusade is easily my favorite besides count bassy and evaporate

 

Death Star
Happiness
Mothership
Downtown Battle Mountain
Acceptance Speech
Artificial Selection / Downtown Battle Mountain II
Instant Gratification

 

Deathstar
Happiness
DBM 1
Instant Gratification
Mothership
Acceptance Speech
Artificial Selection
DBM 2
Whatever I Say Is Poop

 

Can't decide between Artificial Selection and Mothership for 3rd and 4th place but I am really warming to this new album.

1) Happiness
2) Deathstar

5) Instant Gratification
6) Acceptance Speech
7) DBM
8) DBM2

DBM would be higher if Jonny wasn't such an awful human being, that album is a genre classic impo. Can't enjoy it the same way any longer though.

 

1. Mothership
2. Instant Gratification
3. Death Star
4. Happiness
5. Artificial Selection
6. Downtown Battle Mountain
7. Acceptance Speech

8. Downtown Battle Mountain II

ArSe will probably go up once I familiarize myself with it more. Death Star is that high because Uneasy Hearts is probably my favorite DGD song. DBMII is the only one I don't like the majority of, but it does have 5-6 bangers on it.

 

Have any of you ever wondered what DGD would sound like if they were a post-rock band? Probably not, because that's a weird and dumb and random ass thing to think about. But nonetheless, it just so happens an answer to that question actually exists:

There's a bunch of these on this channel and they're all pretty rad.

It's also got this absolute gem.

 

Lol’d at the absolute gem. This has led me down a rabbit hole of cover videos

 

There are four songs on Happiness I absolutely love, but I don’t really enjoy any of the other songs nor do I think they compare to much of the other amazing work this band has done.

 

Happiness track and maybe Powder are the only 2 songs that dont reach the highs of everything else on that album.

Their second guitarist they had for the Kurt albums brought ALOT to the table. Theres alot more eccentric and eighth note rhythms going on than in the Tillian stuff for sure.