The Big Dirty has the catchiest riffs imo. Wouldn’t say it’s a far gap to the second catchiest, but still
The Big Dirty. It’s got more of a bluesy southern edge to it. Not a lot of fast songs, but still heavy af. After that, Low Teens and From Parts Unknown will also be good follow ups. Each album after Gutter Phenomenon has quite a few melodic moments, except for Ex-Lives. That might be their most musically intense record
I've listened to ex lives and low teens several times; only a couple i like on EL and ~3 on LT. just finished GP, and liked about half of it. BD up next. thanks everyone!
Low Teens: Map Change, Coin, Petal, It Remembers Ex Lives: idk on a skim through idr any particularly well Gutter: new black, kill the music, tusk Basically I think I like em more when the guitars are a little reigned in and not just playing seemingly random notes lol Low Teens definitely has my favorite lyrics
Not a bad selection. If you give From Parts Unkown a spin, keep an ear out for Decaying, Overstayer, Old Light and El Dorado. Moor too, but that’s hard to miss.
Are you a fan of classic/older bands such as Thin Lizzy, Metallica, Ozzy, or Danzig? Those are some of the big guitar influences from Andy and Jordan. Having been brought up on those eras of music, it totally clicks and works with me. But I could see someone coming up on later eras not really digging that in your face guitar style.
Relatedly, I’ve always assumed that Andy writes the more “southern,” groove/rock feeling riffs (Revival Mode, Two Summers, New Black, Gone a Long Time), and Jordan writes the more technical/chaotic ones (Coin, Room to Move, Bimbos). I think that’s at least partially because of Andy’s express classic rock influences and Jordan’s intricate artwork. Who knows if it’s accurate though.
kurt describes in one of the making of videos that jordan is more bonkers and frenetic, whereas andy is more feel and traditional, so yeah that lines up
Andy wrote a majority (not all of course) of the guitar parts on Low Teens. Jordan definitely brought songs, riffs, and ideas in, but he came in later on in the process because the band is in Buffalo and he was buying a house and with his wife and kid in Arizona. But generally speaking, if you hear weird guitar parts like in the intro track of Low Teens, those are generally Andy ideas. He usually has some classic band in his head and tries to come up with something inspired by that.
Eh not particularly. And as someone noted above they use a lot of southern style and more chaotic riffs as well, neither of which really vibe with me. The main draw for me is Keith’s vocals, really.
I remember seeing a blurb on Andy in Guitar World or a similar magazine where he said he tuned to Drop D and anything lower was unnecessary/ridiculous. Then they released three albums in a row featuring songs in Drop A and Low Teens had three or so a full step down. Makes me laugh, but I like that they're still experimenting with basic stuff like that. The drop octave effect at the end of Idiot is so dope. Check out The Damned Things if you haven't already! Keith plus Scott Ian from Anthrax, some of the Fall Out Boy guys, and former ETID bass player Josh Newton.
Keith was on the latest Metal Sucks podcast episode, mostly to discuss his new novel. At the end they asked him about plans for new music, and he said they still feel like Low Teens has enough life left in it that they’re not ready to “put it on the shelf yet.” He mentioned that they have started writing a bit though and that they hope to have a new song to play on their headlining tour (presumably this fall after Warped).
I watched the video for Map Change again last night, and it really is their best song and best video. so freakin' good
They were playing Russian Soldier and some FPU song I couldn’t immediately pick out on Insta earlier. Russian Solider might be my favorite non LT song from them Edit: second one might have been from Ex Lives. Whichever one is “Separate hearts are the whole of the law”
The whole set list draft idea seems interesting, but I’d love it if they told us whose set list was whose, just to see if there’s any patterns.
Took me so long to figure out what was going on in that video. They posted a setlist that had a song called "Beast." Anyone know what that is?