I think I like New Again just a little more than the self titled. I like them both, but I revisit them the least. I love Swing though. What a tune.
It's been a while since I listened to them, but I think the b-sides to their self-titled were really great, too.
I haven't heard a lot of their bsides. I wish they release a collection of them, but they obviously won't for a couple of reasons
I've listened to Tidal Wave (the song) like 200 times this week. I love it. No idea why, considering people have been comparing it to The Gaslight Anthem or Against Me and I've never really been into those bands
I really have to relisten to New Again. I think some of it's bad reputation rubbed off on my perception of it.
In Defense Of New Again: NA deals with a lot of adult themes, has a much darker and aggressive bend to it musically, and is a bit more straightforward than the other TBS albums but that doesn't make it bad at all. It shares more in common with WYWTB than anything. It's got the energetic opener, the alt rock jam (Decade, Summer Man), the heavier track (The Union, Swing), the acoustic ballad with lush textures (New American Classic, Where My Mouth Is) a nice little stylistic curveball (Photograph, Carpathia) the structurally interesting barn-burner with a powerful bridge (180 By Summer, Catholic Knees), and the epic closer. The deep cuts in between add to the character of both records and fill out the tracklist nicely. I'm sad that people and even the band hates NA, it's a truly great rock album
New Again just contains songs that are boring and lack anything memorable, that's my reason for not being a fan
think the self titled is only marginally better tho. higher highs (barring "everything must go" which is prob the best tbs song), lower lows
The last two records are garbage. There was so much build up when the original line up got back together and it went nowhere.
happiness is is fucking great and their best album since louder now, sometimes I think it's their best album
Louder Now is their worst. It's super front loaded, after the fifth track most of the songs are pretty disposable. I still like all those songs, but they are on the weaker side of the catalog. @CoffeeEyes17 is doing a much better job of defending New Again than my approach of "shut up guys, those songs are good"