About time, but Watch Out! is actually my favorite album now. My ranking probably looks like this Watch Out! Crisis Old Crows / Young Cardinals S/T Don't know where to put Dog's Blood, it's on its own level in a good way.
I don't know if I'll ever quite put it above Crisis for me, but that's largely because Crisis was my introduction to the band. Both albums are absolutely flawless imo and I love them both so much for slightly different reasons.
I'll never forget putting on Crisis the first time. Drunks, Lovers, Sinners & Saints came at me like a kick in the teeth. That album is just balls to the wall aggressive and I love it.
Watch Out is my favourite by a country mile. Then S/T, Crisis. Haven't listened to the other one since it came out. Dogs Blood would fit between Watch Out and S/T.
This would be my ranking. Though they all are within a point of each other for sure. Such a solid disco from start to finish. Watch out! Dogs Blood OC/YC Crisis S/T
Taking advantage of working from home (we got hit with our biggest snowfall in 26 years) to listen to the entire discography in order on vinyl. Haven't done this in a while and damn, everything on 45RPM sounds flawless.
The self-titled is so good, and remarked as one of the most influential albums of the genre. This thread is the only place on the planet I’ve ever seen it get panned like this.
I don't think it's being panned. People are just recognizing it for what it is, which is a sick album with some genuinely revolutionary and inventive moments and songs on it that also was clearly written by 18 year olds that didn't quite know what they wanted to sound like yet
It sounds pretty dumb of me to say, but I think if people weren’t into the band around that time they don’t recognize its relevancy. To see an album like that come from a bunch of teens who were unknown to me (being an American kid who was downloading every album ever for the hell of it) when this album landed in my library in 04 or 05 it was a game changer. Production aside, nobody had an album quite like it. Blending genres as they did and effectively doing so. And the big story overall was, what is this beautiful voice in the midst of all this chaos? Haha.
I agree with all of this. The bolded part is exactly correct. I guess that's why I can give people that heard Crisis first and like the S/T the least a pass. Who knows if I'd feel the same way about the S/T if I hadn't heard it back in 03. What I don't understand is when people call it "sloppy". Watch Out! brought their musicianship to the next level but their guitar work and song building in general got much more vanilla after that.
I mean a lot of us are ranking it last, but that doesn't mean it's bad. I ranked it last a few pages back but I still think it's an absolute classic (this is an example of why ranking can be fun, but also extremely lacking in nuance). That album changed my musical tastes in so many ways. I think it's a testament to how good this band is that they someone started off on a classic and continued to make records that many consider to be even better.
Definitely agree with this. I think this happens to a lot of bands as they grow older too. They start to settle into more conventional song structures over crazy experimentation. It's not necessarily a bad thing (I still say Crisis and OC/YC are great albums). Often it can be a huge positive when a band's songwriting becomes more focused. That being said, Dog's Blood showed real promising signs of bringing back some of the more interesting instrumentals that made me fall in love with these guys in the first place.
No denying that Crisis expanded their fan base and did more for the band than any other release. A pretty big departure from the previous albums, but original and hard hitting. Production is really good too. Really feeds to the songs they wrote.
I really dig this. Instrumentation has a really cool groove to it, and both George and Dallas sound dope.
Definitely not what I expected in a good way. It's a direct continuation of Dog's Blood meets Queens Of The Stone Age-y stoner rock influences. Dallas sounds great. Surprised to not vocally hear more from Wade outside of the chorus and the ending, as it seems like his rough tone would be a perfect fit for this style. They haven't missed a beat though.