outside of casually dressed, most of the ffaf i listen to the most is their late era stuff. big change in the vocal style but the songwriting is top notch
I personally love Conduit. All the songs are short and sweet, but it's definitely their heaviest. The title track in particular stands out, and the single Best Friends and Hospital Beds has an insanely good pre-chorus and chorus
Welcome Home Armageddon pretty much picks up where they left off with Hours, even harkening back to the earlier EPs on the heavier songs. Aftertaste and Damned If You Do are classic FFAF. Conduit takes a slight left turn, building on the former but leaning more on melodic hardcore. It’s probably their most relentless release. It’s like barely 30 mins long so you could start with this one as well. I’d also recommend Serpents In Solitude which was on the EP that preceded Welcome Hime Armageddon, as well as the four new songs from the Your History Is Mine compilation. Wrench in particular is a fun ripper. I love everything they’ve done but if you’re a fan of their earlier stuff, these should be up your alley.
No Honour Among Thieves, Built to Last and Wrench definitely all slay. I wish they had kept the extra vocals going on in the follow ups.
As someone that didn't enjoy TDTT and M&H, then fell off them. I think their later releases are WAY better than those. Nothing hits like Hours or CD&DIC, except maybe Conduit for me. Welcome Home Armageddon is good, has some great songs and some okay ones. But better than TDTT and M&H and worth a listen. I think Conduit is fantastic. Was absolutely floored when it came out and listened to it a ton. It's more aggressive and maybe...punk? But great listen that I go back to a ton actually. Chapter and Verse is quite good, but probably closer to Welcome Home Armageddon than Conduit for me. Has some great songs, but some misses. Definitely worth a listen.
i adore chapter and verse, some days it might be my favorite lp of theirs. think they did an amazing job taking the hardcore aesthetics they built conduit off of and fusing more indie and emo flavors in there, and the last two songs are as perfect a send off as they coulda had. jade tree years is probably my favorite song of theirs ill also stick up for m&h, think its a bit overlong but it mostly makes up for that by being their catchiest album. shits got more hooks than the claw machine section of an arcade the only album i dont really love of their last 4 is ironically welcome home armageddon but i know a lot of people think its a top 3er lol. it does riff, i cant deny
Welcome Home Armageddon for sure. It's the only post-Hours LP I care for much at all. Man Alive, Medicated, Sixteen are a few tracks to start with. I think of WHA as kind of taking the CDDIC/Hours post hardcore sound and throwing in a slight thrash element. The records before it were too poppy, and the stuff after it is hard to get through because his voice was completely shot. Unfortunately his voice has already dropped off even on WHA, but it's not awful.
I also stand by M&H, it's so nostalgic - I remember hearing Constant Illuminations and being so happy they had gone back to a slightly heavier sound after Tales
Welcome Home Armageddon is comfortably their best post-Hours record for me. I also agree that the extra songs on Your History Is Mine are also fantastic.
I like how you pretty much never saw the lead singer's looks being promoted, even though he looked better and frattier than all the other emos.
thanks for all the recommendations and insights, i truly appreciate it! i shall get to listening!! love those first two FFAF albums so much, just was hard to keep track/up back in the day. also why was tales so bad? does anyone like that album? i was so bummed getting it and bein like this sucks lol
tales is great! scorching hot take but i like it more than hours lol i will say i didnt experience this band in real time, so i think it was probably easier on my ears knowing what i was getting into and the overall shape of their catalog vs how it probably felt on release date
Tales is better than Memory for sure. I like a handful of songs, but it felt very limited by the "concept" and some songs felt forced into that "story", I felt at least. Into Oblivion is an absolute banger, still listen often.
Still love Tales and the only weak moment is Walk Away, which is a bit too generic pop rock and has a corny key change. It just wasn't the right album at the right time and probably killed their momentum.
yeah I like it too, Raise the Sail is the only real dip there imo. recommend listening to that album with the original tracklist too, I posted it a couple pages back in this thread
only song thats even vaguely a skip for me is out of reach, although i cannot lie im not a fan of that one lol crash and burn + rise and fall are pretty sweet bonuses tho
I just do not like the stop-start vocal melody in the chorus especially with how strong all the other hooks on that album are
One for the Road's bridge is a highlight on that record, probably one of my favorite moments out of their entire discog