Completely agree on Portals. Nathan has stated on the record that BN and MO are heavy influences, and opening the record with a Christian hymn is an obvious homage to Daisy. The problem is Portals into Ferrari is a snooze fest, essentially negating the impact of both tracks. There's just not a lot of replay value here for fans of the band who have been following them closely over the past decade, sadly.
I think this album is decent enough but I’m not sure if it’s going to change them from being a band I mostly listen to when I’m going to be seeing them because they’re touring with another band I like.
Man this band is clicking right now. Their set at The Earl last night was kick ass. They played for 90 minutes-I’m assuming the set they’ll be playing on the headline tour. Played every song I could have hoped for except 1. The new songs sound great-especially the title track.
Glad the set’s good, and probably the longest they’ve done! Was surprised I couldn’t find the setlist this morning.
How long was this set? I find it hard to believe that this is what they will do as a headliner with 3 more bands on the bill.
Was just at the Buffalo show- can confirm it’s the same setlist. Carpool Tunnel had a pretty short set and HAM was just about 30. Origami Angel’s set was pretty long, Microwave started pretty late and only wrapped around 11.
I've come around on this quite a bit too. Seems like each time i spin it a new track pops for me. Right now it's Strangers.
I’ve listened to circling the drain quite a few times since its release but it just like really hit me this week how good the song is.
As a whole album, this is definitely really growing on me. I'm a pretty casual Microwave fan, but most of this works for me. I think I'd like Portals more as an intro track if it went right into Circling the Drain, especially because Ferrari is probably my least favorite song here. I think someone said earlier that it feels like two intro tracks and I agree with that sentiment. But after that I think it's pretty much all good to great. Circling the Drain, Bored of Being Said, Let's Start Degeneracy, and Strangers are the highlights for me.
If only they could have given us 2 more new tracks ILO Portals and Concertito... Every song on this is fantastic, it's just still difficult to get over the fact that we had 5/8 of the album before release. Glad I avoided overplaying the tracks as they dripped out because this is still one of my favorite releases from this year. This "Mother Mother - Grief Chapter" & "Durry - Suburban Legend" are the albums I keep returning to right now. The Durry one came out in 2023 but it's new to me.