I don’t listen to a whole lot of heavy-ish music anymore but I’m very confident when I say this is very much an all-timer for me.
Like honestly plenty of bands have been able to come back after a long layoff and release good records (e.g. Dinosaur Jr), but a band that released two near perfect records, went dormant for 20+ years, and dropped a record out of the blue that might be their best one yet? Not many bands can say they did that. This was one of my favorite records last year but after listening to it more this week, I’m pretty confident in saying it’s a masterpiece.
I still think DiH is their best and sometimes come in here feeling comparatively indifferent to Inlet even though I love it. Easily one of the best rock records of last year. The shoegaze and space rock bands seem to be better at comeback albums. MBV, Failure, Hum. Slowdive too.
Downward Is Heavenward Inlet You'd Prefer an Astronaut see even that ranking feels weird and wrong to me because they're all so good
Ranking the big 3 is just impossible. I find Inlet the least technically and creatively impressive on paper, yet I still put it on more than the other two. If I had to do numerical ratings they'd all be like 9.3-9.7.