Emarosa – 131

Really good review. I've been digging that you are back doing more reviews this year.

 

love this album on vinyl. its so powerful

 

I've apparently gotta relisten to this more because aside from that run from Cloud 9 to Never I was pretty bored by it. For what it's worth it's one of my favorite album covers in a long time though.

 

i always kind of hated this band and listened to this album on a recommendation and it really is incredible. totally can get down with this.

 

Awesome review, Drew. I still can't get over what a great touch it was to borrow the Bobby Brown/Ghostbusters II melody during the bridge of "Helpless." Bradley retweeted it when I mentioned it to the band cause apparently no one else had caught it yet on the day they premiered the track.

Also, Connor Denis' drum performance on this is next level. It's a shame he can't be in the band full-time because I'd love to see him play with them live, but damn he does some incredible work on these tracks.

 

The TREOS namedrop makes me want to finally give this album a spin.

I had a lot of trouble getting into the singles. And the only reason I even checked out the singles is because I'm a Casey Bates fan, not an Emarosa fan.

 

Excellent review and amazing album. They really knocked it out of the park with this one.

Not only is there a TREOS namedrop in the review, there is a TREOS lyric in Re :)

 

Well the TREOS namedrop might not be accidental, seeing as they also borrow the line "this is the last night in my body" somewhere within that song :) I like the album much more than I liked the singles alone, and I pretty mich disliked all the videos, but it's not too important, as a whole piece this LP makes sense!

I'd definitely recommend to check out the latest episode of Casey Bates's podcast (generally an amazingly formulated podcast), where he discusses the making of this album with Bradley, a lot of fun facts etc., and it got me even more excited to find out they had the drummer of Beartooth, and the bassist of Matchbook Romance to track the songs, as well as stated in the review - Sean from Yellowcard doing a lot of the strings.

 

Oh don't worry, I'm a dedicated listener to the Casey Bates podcast. Changed my life earlier than year when it introduced me to my new favorite band, DR MANHATTAN!

I'll probably give 131 a solid chance soon, but from everything I've heard, including clips from Casey's podcast, I really think my ear has a distaste for the types of melodies Bradley writes. Not to sound totally full of myself, but I'm a legitimate fan of R&B music, so anytime a rock band from our scene attempts to go more "R&B" with their sound comes across as cheaply second-rate to me. I could be wrong concerning Emarosa, but the biggest offender in this category (whom I will gladly throw under the bus) is The Cab.

 

thank you!

 

This album is phenomenal. I been a huge fan of Bradley for years now since Squid the Whale released their first song with him as the singer (The Greatest Way- still an awesome as hell track) back in 2011. The guy has soul and you can hear the passion in his voice.

After Versus underwhelmed me (underwhelmed Bradley too I guess) minus a few key tracks, a new Emarosa record wasn't even something I was excited for. Then I heard "Cloud 9" and was blown away. After they released "Helpless" as a follow up, I became impatient for 131 to arrive despite writing the band off before. This record is AOTY worthy for sure and powerful as fuck.

 

Dr Manhattan!!

Also yeah, this record is 10000000x better than anything The Cab related. I would definitely check it out. There's nothing really cheap here and Bradley and co. really give it their all musically/lyrically plus Casey did a great job on it!

 

Great review, Drew. Really cool to see after Versus wasn't even reviewed on AP.net (and many other places).

It's exciting to see so many people's minds changed about what they thought the album would be. Spread the word. This isn't the same Emarosa.

 

I can't get over how much I love this album. I never even listened to Emarosa before this album but I'm a fan now!

 

I feel a huge disconnect looking at these comments. I thought this album was wholly unremarkable.

 

Might take a while to grow on you? It took me 9 years to finally love Say Anything's ... Is a Real Boy hah

 

I liked 3 songs with Jonny Craig on vocals and didn't care for versus at all. Always new this band had some kind of potential that they weren't hitting the mark with. I'm with you. This album is an easy aoty contender for me so far.

 

damn weird, it took most people nine years to finally realize it's not that good

 

Hah really? I love it. Oh well.

 

Anyone know what the title "131" stems from?

 

I'd love to know this as well. I've been trying to find out.

 

I want to say I read it in an interview with the band or in a review. I honestly can't remember and it was just last week. I'll try and summarize. It's basically like noticing something in your life and then seeing it over and over once your brain has thought about it enough. Like, for example, my ex-girlfriend's white Subaru. Didn't think anything of the car until we broke up and now I see it EVERYWHERE. Does that make any sense?

 

That's a really interesting concept. I'd love for them to go more in depth about 131 specifically but that might be too personal to share.

 

Picked this album up at Warped on Monday at my date. They were the first band of the day and the first band I got to see.

They also put on the best show the whole day. Bradley fucking rips on vocals. I was super surprised.

Loving this album.