I just dug out my copy of Small Steps, Heavy Hooves on vinyl and threw it on after going through this thread. The record really holds up all these years later.
I've listened to their albums again a few times this week thanks to the announcement. What's everyone's favorite song or lyric?
Had no idea about The Gentle Hits!!! Was just asking about DITH the other day when I listed them in best Indie Rock Albums of the 00's!
So excited for the TGH album. Both DATH albums are great and, to reiterate what many others before me have said, I've missed his voice. I've been selling a lot my records recently and ended up getting rid of DLBT, which I'm sad about, but I think I'm gonna hold onto my copy of SSHH forever.
We have/had the same variants. I'm gonna be really mad at myself for letting go of DLBT in the future, I know it. But ultimately it's hard to deny a (relatively) easy $100 when you're an unemployed trans girl.
I was late into the game of collecting and picked up an amber Small Steps and a merlot Drunk Like Bible Times off eBay as both vinyl/CD for like $60 a year or two ago!
Dear and the Headlights members form The Gentle Hits (stream a track) (yes, yes I am playing this on repeat.)
One of those bands I found at the beginning when all they had was a couple of demos on MySpace and followed since. Love them and excited for The Gentle Hits massively.
Haha that's exactly how I discovered them. Through MySpace, plus they were on Equal Vision, which had signed a lot of bands I liked.
I found them on PureVolume when PureVolume was still relevant - they had all their stuff up for download, and I've been following them ever since.
Ah nice, yeah this was pre-album/label. I remember all they had was demo versions of "Sweet Talk", "Daysleeper" and "Run In The Front" (which I loved the demo form of because Ian's voice broke during it). They had next to no fans/friends/followers and I even struck up chats with Chuckie at the time via MySpace messaging, was so cool to some kid all the way over in England to have "found" them so randomly through a random MySpace search/play/shuffle technique of music profiles on there. I legitimately feel like that signing to Equal Vision was part of the reason they didn't hit or spread as well as they could have, they were on a bill with acts that weren't quite the same or if not that, they were touring with bands that didn't "fit" (I seem to remember them touring with Paramore at one stage...?) I really think they were "ahead of their time" although I hate that phrasing.
Exactly. They had no fans whatsoever. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this somewhere in this thread already, but I went to the album release show of Small Steps, Heavy Hooves and there couldn't have been a few dozen people there. Gave me a chance to speak to Ian a little bit. Plus, they played "Run In The Front" for me, which was awesome of them.
Knew it! Holy fuck that is so so awesome, I remember practically begging them to come to the UK when I was messaging Chuckie, ridiculous ask of a band with a couple of demos at the time haha. I still wish I'd got a vinyl version of Small Steps, Heavy Hooves....they go for so much money nowadays and it's easily a top 5 album of mine of all time. SO important.
Keep an eye out on eBay, you might get lucky as I did. I didn't start buying any vinyl until a few years ago and D&TH was always like $60+ per album, then I ended up getting both albums on vinyl and CD for like $50 in one auction.
That's awesome, unfortunately being in the UK there's all the shipping costs on top of it all so it almost doubles the price. Nowhere in the UK has it, no chance.
On that note, I just checked eBay and it's only up by two price-gouging individuals... one at $99.99 and another at $169.99 - people suck.