Not sure I can pick a favorite with how different they are. I find both to do what they are going well quite well lol. I love the energy of Brave Faces/Schmaltz just as as much as I'm loving the chill vibes to No Joy.
Saving most of this for tomorrow but bouncing around it now before I go to sleep Lifers fucking rips, fuck I love this band
This is great. A totally different energy to their previous releases, and I miss the sense of pace at points, but the songs are just so catchy and well written.
A couple songs I really like on this, but the War on Drugs-isms clash weirdly with the almost self-parodic levels of wallowing despair for me
I didn't really click with this band's previous output, but these songs are just so smooth and catchy, and *just* enough of the rough edges were smoothed out for it to not wear on me over the course of the album. Maybe if I start to love this album the previous ones will click for me.
I like this more on a second listen. Lifers, Rapture Chaser and Re-Emerging Signs are the obvious standouts. I do wish there were maybe one or two more "fast" songs, for lack of a better word. Some of the acoustic-driven stuff just blurs a bit for me. But that's just personal preference.
Mutable is one of my favorites on here. The whole album is really impressive and a great direction for this band.
They just shared a post to their Insta story reminding me when I first got into them how they didn’t show up as an artist page on Spotify when you searched “Spanish Love Songs” and instead the search results were very confused at what I was seeing vs what I was trying to listen to
I enjoy this and it will no doubt grow on me over time, but a lot of it is pretty same-y for me right now. Some people said the same thing about brave faces, and I don’t necessarily disagree, but this is lacking some of that oomph and urgency imo. No problem with the change in direction, but would have liked a couple “heavier” songs.
Would say go listen to Brave Faces Etc. if you’re struggling with this one, really helps put everything in the proper musical context I think.
I really like this, but it's not an instant AOTY contender for me in the way Brave Faces Everyone was. I don't think the more dynamic emotional moments hit quite as hard when they're pulling back from this subdued baseline instead of the denser sound of the earlier records, and all of the repeated lines haven't clicked enough yet. I'm still stoked to finally have the record and am going to be playing it a ton, but I was really hoping for more songs that had the same sort of impact as "Haunted" and "Clean-Up Crew."
Listened last night and this will definitely be a grower. Definitely a more mellow nighttime album for me, but I’m sure it’ll grow on me in time. I don’t necessarily want the “room to breathe” feel from this band. BFE was in your face, raw and everything I love about this band. I wasn’t hugely into Brave Faces Etc and preferred the original version much more. Wish there were more bangers like Clean Up Crew. Overall. I’m just glad to have this band around after they’ve hinted at maybe calling it quits due to a lot of struggles caused by Covid. Hope the Hot Mulligan tour does them wonders and we get a spring headliner.
smdh people listen once and are like "idk this isn't the greatest album i've ever heard not sure if i like it"
I haven’t seen hardly anyone say they don’t like it. With the pretty big stylistic shift there was obviously going to be some people who are surprised by the tone of the record and it’ll take time to grow on them. I definitely like the album, it’s just nowhere as immediate as the last two albums for me. It’s not a criticism, it’s personal preference. I’m glad the band made the album they wanted to make and branched out. The safe choice would have been to try to make BFE 2 which this is definitely not and I respect them immensely for that.