Dance Gavin Dance - Pantheon (September 12, 2025) • Page 7

I don't think anyone posting in here has been unaware of the situation lol, it's been mentioned a lot (as it should be). we're in here discussing a leak, it's not like anyone is financially supporting the band by doing that

 

This is easily their best album since Mothership. I genuinely don’t get how any long-time DGD fan wouldn’t be on board with Andrew. The dude is insanely versatile. He’s got Jonny’s rasp and R&B-style runs, Kurt’s flowing melodic sensibility, and when he pushes into his upper range, he even channels some Tilian. He can pull off every era of the band, and he kills it on this record.

A lot of the criticism I’ve seen about him not standing out feels more like a mixing issue than anything else. It’s like they’re hesitant to put him front and center. There are killer melodies all over the album, but Andrew’s often buried under Jon’s yell/sing/scream thing or just sitting too low in the mix. And in the Trap Door video, he's not even featured all that much. I get that they said Jon is the frontman now, but there aren’t fewer clean vocals on this record than in past ones. It kind of feels like they’re trying to downplay the vocalist change instead of owning it. If they had just fully leaned into the switch and let Andrew shine, I think most people would’ve accepted it without hesitation.

 

they would have been better off going with no clean vocals on this album imo. andrew is terrible.

 

just let jon do cleans and screams.

 

I think the three official singles are incredible. Can’t stop listening to them and made a deep dive into all the different lineups more enjoyable. Andrew is good (nothing shameful had me at hello), I’m sure they are just trying to be distinctly different than the Tillian clean vocal focused albums of the past. Jackpot showed they needed a big change regardless.

Most anticipated album for me along with YC, TSL, Silverstein, Hot Mulligan and maybe Broadside. 2025 is trying for a hell of a 2005 impression.

 

pretty happy with this, not their best by any means but after years of tilian I'm glad to have something different again. doesn't hold a candle to DBM2 or happiness and not sure anything ever will since they still more or less fell into standard song structures again and there are too many instances of layered vocals.

but I will probably be listening to this and have more of this stuck in my head than any of the albums since acceptance speech lol. not to say I didn't like any of them, there are definitely good songs throughout that tenure, but it felt much more predictable and samey as things kept going. wasn't really huge on mothership but commercially it was successful and felt like they 'sold out' following the mothership hype

having fun with this though

 

I've listened to it a handful of times. I keep coming back to A Should to Cry On and All the Way Down... nothing else.

 

space cow has me

 

Y'all are really making me want to listen to this lol. Where does everyone rank this album? Mothership and self titled are my favorite and Jackpot Juicer is at the very bottom, where would you guys personally put it? I have the discography on vinyl but haven't pre-ordered this yet because 1. JJ was a letdown and 2. First two singles didn't sell me on it and 3. Not *completely* sold on Andrew yet.

 

It’s hard to definitively rank it this early on, but I think I’d probably put it right about in the middle of their discography.

 

For me it’s bottom half and mothership is my favorite. I don’t see myself coming back to it. Maybe 7th or 8th in their disco for me currently.

 

Hmmm. Maybe I should listen before deciding to order the vinyl lol.

 

Seeing some talk that there’s a b-side/bonus track called “Gingivitis” that some people already have their hands on.

 

I enjoy listening to Pantheon more than any of the Tilian era albums. DBM2 and Happiness are my all time favorite DGD albums, followed by Death Star and DBM1.

 

right there with you

 

I haven't even seen the band perform with Tilian live after his allegations happened. That Evening With Friends tour that Andrew first replaced him was one of my favorite DGD shows ever and then this most recent tour was fantastic.

I can live with abandoning the Tilian albums almost entirely. Most of Tilian's parts just don't resonate with me anymore.

The lyrics in Pantheon seem to be a departure from that era as well, and in particular their relationship with Tilian. Some of the references are just way too obvious and specific. Tilian's behavior and personality over the years, especially towards the end had to have given the band A LOT to write about.

Pantheon to me is a good enough album to almost make you feel like the previous 6 albums never happened. Tonaly, it gathers their best sounds from the last 12 years, while improving upon how they pull off the low end heavy parts. Can't wait to get the final mix and listen to the lossless audio version of it.

 

i wish i could put this bands bullshit aside and throw the leak a listen but i truly just cannot do it

 

I got pretty tired of hearing his predictable rasp and super high parts. unfortunately I think his layered vocals affected andrew a bit since andrew seems to use those a lot, wish he didn't cause I think he'd be fine without them. despite that this is still more enjoyable for me than any albums recently, I did like IG a lot back when it came out but I can't really listen to it anymore. maybe the allegations have subconsciously affected me or I just don't like that poppy sound much anymore lol

the recent tour was awesome, glad they played stuff catering to older fans since I never got a chance to see them with Jonny or Kurt. been listening to them since like 2010 so it's nice to be excited again when I wrote off a majority of their material that I saw as 'selling out'

 

100 percent where I'm at.

Looking at the spotify streaming numbers on kworb, it seems that other listeners are trending away from the Tilian material on a daily basis.

Dance Gavin Dance - Spotify Top Songs

We Own The Night leads at 43.3k streams a day, but Blue Dream is 2nd at 36.8k streams and Uneasy Hearts 3rd is at 35.k streams.

Even though We Own The Night has a massive 111 million streams, both Blue Dream and Uneasy Hearts' popularity has massively picked up and is catching up.

All The Way Down is 5th at 25.4k streams and Midnight At McGuffy's is 6th at 23.4k a day.

 

Afterburner is still #1 to me until the formal release of this is out. Got into DGD later so the early albums are just now growing on me.

 

This has to be the first time I have ever seen anyone say this.

 

Afterburner was the biggest disappointment for me by far. I loved Prisoner when it came out, so when the rest of the album just sounded like more of the same with Tilian I was bummed. Think it’s better than ArSe or Jackpot Juicer at least.

 

Nothing Shameful might be my favourite song from the whole Tilian era which makes it wild how mid the rest of that album is

 

Ok so I've been listening to a lot of older stuff before I have a trip and I'll listen to the leak. But here's my ranking of albums.

Mothership
Self Titled
Instant Gratification
Artificial Selection
DBM1
Acceptance Speech
Jackpot Juicer
Whatever I Say Is Royal Ocean
Happiness
DBM2
Afterburner


As far as fav songs:

Betrayed By The Game
Evaporate
We Own The Night
Burning Down The Nicotine Armoire
And I Told Them I Invented Times New Roman

 

downtown battle mountain
whatever i say is royal ocean
self titled
happiness

i don't know the others and hate tillian's voice so i can't listen. those first two records are special though.