Still surprised how little I enjoy this overall given how much I love "Bored of Being Sad." Like, I have a hard time imagining loving any one song this year as much as that one.
Just because I'm bored I went ahead and my perfect 12 song setlist. Ferrari Mirrors Circling The Drain Lighterless Straw Hat DIAWB Dull But Not Often Drown Whimper Something Right Vomit
Title track and Huperzine are excellent, but the sequencing of this record is still way off to me - Side A is essentially an EP that's been out for well over a year. I find myself going straight to Bored and/or LSD when playing this. Which Turnover track from GN/Altogether does Omni sound like? Can't put my finger on it.
I feel like it sounds more like them generally than any specific song but I hear a little “Number on the Gate” kinda??
Oh, maybe! Track would fit right in on Altogether if Austin was signing. "Nathan Hardy: We had actually talked about just releasing singles, but I think that people in this realm of music like albums and it gives an opportunity for a PR push and narrative surrounding a larger release. We had one album left on our deal with Pure Noise, plus we had also publicly implied that we were gonna be doing a whole record, so we were just like, “let’s hash it out.” But if “Circling The Drain” hadn’t done as well as it did – it became a crowd favorite live and it streamed really well – we may have been reconsidering whether we should just put out more singles. Instead, it was, “let this be the blueprint of a general direction."" I don't like this answer and reasoning for putting the album out, and in my opinion, the implied laziness and/or "well, I guess we'll throw something together to put out" shows in the end result.
Not a lot of meat on the bone after half of the album being pre-released and the intro/interlude. Unfortunately those two do nothing to improve the album experience IMO and I blocked them on Spotify. It plays great as an 8-track album, the run of LSD --> Omni --> Strangers is EXCELLENT, but wish there was more here after five years without a new album.
I'm excited to catch them this weekend at the Shaky Knees fest - bummed I missed the tickets to the late night show as I think that'll be a high energy rock out as it's in a tiny little divebar / super neat venue. Oh well. They went FAST. RE the album - I agree with a lot of the comments above. I LOVE some of the new sounds they explored (title track is stellar) but the roll out was strange and it ultimately ends up feeling short and incomplete still.
Would also need Neighbors for me. I love that song and how catchy it is for how goofy the lyrics are.
Id never listened to the pre-release songs or the band in general before the day I posted that stereogum tweet on release week so I don’t have the rollout qualms and absolutely love the album. My only gripe is the intro track is odd, I would have put a banger song 2 but whatever
It’s hard to overstate how circling the drain is the undisputed best song on this record. really could get more songs the like of circling the drain & let’s start degeneracy song rating because I cannot express my thoughts: circling the drain Let’s start degeneracy Bored of being sad Ferrari Strawhat Omni Huperzine Dreams Strangers portals G major
They stated this originally wasn't even an album, I'm kind of hoping they just put it together to end their contract with their label and put the next material out quicker. Omni and Circling the Drain make my playlists. Everything else is forgettable.
It's interesting how Final Summer by Cloud Nothings is getting more play from me than this album, and I haven't even really listened to anything CN put out since Last Building Burning. Funny how that works.
Haven't listened to the band before, gave the album a shot based on the Stereogum piece. I saved 3 songs in my 2024 playlist: your top 3. Could not agree more, clear standouts
Circling the drain might be their best song, but lighterless is a close second if you haven’t heard that absolute banger yet
I love the 8 tracks on this album, happy the 3 new ones were fun/funky but the rollout totally destroyed this album, and having 2 filler tracks when 5 songs have been out for 1-2yrs now felt cheap. Overall I like the 8 songs a LOT better than DIAWB (I know I'm in the minority I just can't get into the production of that album, I like to hear the lyrics...) I just hate that I'm kind've tired of it already because there's very little new music here. PS: I thought Portals was going to do something similar to "Vices" by BN which would have been awesome but instead it's just a skip track and I hate skipping tracks when listening to albums.
Digging this but agree with the sentiment that I wish it was a bit longer, especially with an intro track and interlude. Will be alternating between this and the new Owen record for the next few weeks.