Finch Band • Page 42

I feel like Randy brings the more melodic, poppier influence and Nate really leans into the weirder, more abrasive side of the band's songwriting. I feel like they kinda have the same push and pull dynamic as Chino/Stef from Deftones. I'm pretty sure Nate left the band in the past because they couldn't agree on the direction of the band musically. Might just need to accept both halves need to be present if we're going to get any new music.

Bummer that according to the interview they haven't even started the recording process yet. 2026 it is - if ever.

 

I remember my first listen with my roommate of SHTS, us being super excited then him being like, "what is this nu-metal shit." The album grew to be one of my favorite albums at the time but I only had one friend I knew would like it that I told about it.

It had elements in it where had they just had a little more bop they could have made something to follow up strong.

I hate when bands turn their back completely and hate what made them recognizable in the first place. There's growth, but then there's just deleting the identity of your band.

 

I remember hearing the demos of "Brother Bleed Brother", "Ink", and "Miro" before the album was released and my mind was just blown. I figured they'd head in that direction a little bit after they released "Worms of the Earth" but had no idea just how far they'd steer into that sound. Still love both albums for what they are. I feel like it'd be a natural next step to combine both approaches and meet somewhere in the middle for the new album.

 

That unreleased album Phantasma would be what I would tell people who want to get into the band to listen to. To me it perfectly captures their overall sound the best. Those songs had definite Deftones influence as well. Shame it never got released.

 

Don't forget Grizzly! Though he does pretty much say something of the sort, in a broader sense, in the interview above when asked about their writing process. It makes me want to revisit everything now that I have a clearer idea of the three of them's respective songwriting styles.

 

I just assumed Grizzly serves as more of a mediator and helps bridge both visions into something “Finch appropriate” based on that interview. I could be wrong.

 

Phantasma is so good. I know I’ve said this a few times now but I really do think the band could crowdfund to get both Phantasma and World of Violence both properly recorded/produced as a treat to fans if they wanted to. However, I’m sure they’re over those tracks sadly.

 

Which era got you into the band plays a lot, I think? There's parts of WIITB I've never really got into as they veer too much into pop-punk. Not that there's anything wrong with that but, as someone who clicked with SHTS first, these songs always sounded jarring to my ears. At the time (when they first reunited in 2007), I was already seeking out more alternative or darker stuff, so that follow-up was exactly what I needed. I feel like it was too late for WIITB to hit me as hard as it must have for you guys in 2002.

I find it amusing that they didn't even make one or two transitional albums that could've helped SHTS land better. No, they had to make that jump right away and alienate most of their fanbase lmao

 

Hell, I still play the crap out of their unreleased song “Monuments”. It’s so sad they have just as many unofficial songs as official ones!

 

They tried to combine the two albums sounds into the third album which was largely forgettable. I’ve just come to terms that they just caught lightning in a bottle with the first album.

 

phantasma and world of violence are both spectacular "albums"

 

I saw them at the Slam Dunk Festival on Saturday, although no one around me seemed to know anything apart from Letters and WIITB. I can confirm though that Insomniatic Meat is fantastic live !!!

 

Can I report this? :D

Jokes aside,
I can totally understand if someone doesn’t really connect with this dark and progressive album. WIITB hit me like a punch straight to my teenage heart, and I still love that record.
Say Hello To Sunshine is tough to get into at first—definitely. But all the layers in the songs, the depth of the lyrics, the wide range it covers... to just write it off as crap honestly feels kind of rude to me. It doesn’t have to be everyone’s cup of tea, that’s clear. But the fact that the production and songwriting are on a pretty high level—one that (in my opinion) even surpasses WIITB—is something you can acknowledge even if you don’t like it.
I didn’t like the album at first either, for the first few weeks. But I asked myself why my (at the time) favorite band would do something like that, and I really dove into it, gave it a real listen. It’s a grower—and it’s a shame that way more people didn’t see that.

 

It’s been 20 years of trying to let that one grow on me. I just don’t think it’s gonna happen. And it didn’t kill their career because it was too ambitious, or too high level of songwriting, plenty of forward and awesome albums during that era were being made.

 

from bands who were already more forward thinking than finch was on their debut though? thats missing what the context of bands like glassjaw or poison the well or thrices discogs and audiences were in the first place, or that juturna/synapse were debuts, etc. they werent playing as accessible of music as finch to begin with, they had a pop punk crowd that wanted pop punk

im not even saying it wasnt a pinkerton moment for them, but the shts dissent here specifically often comes across as un-nuanced

 

I ... disagree? Saves the Day, Gatsbys, Brand New, Thrice, Starting Line, Midtown, I could go on ... there's a whole lot of bands that went from playing pop-punk music to expanding into different genres and sounds and it was better received in the moment and, importantly, with time. That never happened with Finch.

 

I respect SHTS a whole lot even if I don't return to it as often as I'd like.

Seems like a lot of those Drive-Thru bands took a little too long on follow-up albums, had gotten older since writing the first one, and wanted to do new things. In a lot of cases the fanbase/scene just wasn't there for it as much as the "breakout" album - see The Starting Line with BOATS, Early November with the triple album, Houston Calls with TEOAE, the list goes on. It's tough for any given band to hold the limelight when they're ready to do something a little different after playing songs they wrote as teenagers for 3-4 years. I don't disagree that the album cycle hurt their career overall, but the music itself is solid - if they had found the right crowd (with different marketing, bigger label push, different tours, etc) we would probably be lauding it as much as the first album. It's just how it goes man, art is hard.

I've found that I really enjoy listening to these "formative" albums for me when jogging lately, to kind of take in the production overall and think about the music in a more objective way, and WIITB got a turn a few weeks ago. Production is fantastic on that album overall, but I think New Beginnings is a terribly weak opener and that at least half the songs are about one chorus too long. It's not a perfect album, but I love how experimental the deeper cuts are and it's a lot of fun just trying to pick out all the layers going on.

sorry for the rambly post - side note: where can I get the highest quality versions of the scrapped albums folks are mentioning?

 

I would easily make the argument that Finch’s momentum during that time (their career is clearly not dead) died very much because they were so ambitious.

People in 2004/2005 were very much expecting a pretty straight forward follow up and the band could have easily done that no problem. However, they delivered something so out of left field that people were largely confused.

Simply put: they were ambitious as hell and wanting to do something radically different than safe and uninspired…. but that didn’t translate well with general audiences.

It did with me and I’ve been a Finch fan since WIITB first came out on CD. I also think hearing leaked demos 6+ months before the release softened the shock of the change too.

 

not familiar with starting line, but b**** n** and s**** the d** (forgot about both bc of their awful pasts ngl) both revved up to their more arty albums with records like deja and stay what you are that kinda tested those waters in traditional ways. they prepped their audience with a road that lead to where they wanted to go where finch just shoved their fans in the deep end

also thrice did not play pop punk? illusion is a pretty complex album for early phxc standards

 

Someone managed to record a few seconds of 'Palpatine' @7:45

sounds like a faster song than their usual tempo

 

I don't think SHTS is "more arty" than Stay What You Are from a change in sound perspective. If the songs are good fans and listeners are pretty good about either growing with the band at the time OR later on coming around on the album. OR they find their new fans. None of that happened here. And Finch pitched themselves as a version of Deftones and Glassjaw, they had a lot of cross over fans there. But even the Deftones and Glassjaw crossover fans were like "this shit sucks" and dropped them.

Also Thrice's Identity Crisis was very much accepted in the skate and pop-punk community in Southern California. Even more than Finch was at the time.

 

It’s been a minute since I listened to Sunshine, but it was not too too long ago. I remember liking some of it and kind of tuning out other songs. I still loved Insomniatic Meat and was stoked they played it on the Bayside tour. WIITB is their only release I genuinely love front to back.

 

This sounds sick - they also supposedly played Miro during their set too!

 

ik plenty of glassjaw and deftones fans from those days who ate that album up but our own exposure biases are gonna be different obv

"accepted in the pop punk community" is different from "being pop punk" though?

 

Miro is one of their coolest songs imo