Tidal Wave complete. As I started this one it struck me how wildly sprawling their discography is. I think when they were doing a bunch of tayf shows I thought this band was kind of tired, but to have the firmly iconic tayf debut, losing two key members, having their opposite of a sophomore slump on wywtb, and their magnum mainstream opus with louder now, New again which is like a sophomore slump but as a fourth record finding themselves with Adam firmly as the front man, and then very consistently inventive albums as the og lineup returning is a wild journey. Deep respect for the adaptability of this band and Adam as a frontman through all of this but valuing collaborators throughout is really unique. Death Wolf into Tidal Wave is a bizarre sequencing. I LOVE tidal wave as a song. It’s cheesy, but it made its way onto a running playlist and I almost always repeat it when it comes on shuffle. Can’t look back chorus whoops ass, the bridge is a cool mix of the quiet part in make damn sure and then the layered vocals and full band coming in kind of sounds like a throwback to tayf, but it’s all subtle. Fences has a tiny little nod to untitled blink era drum part that came out of nowhere. This whole era has a lot of strong choruses, this album seems built around choruses. Lots of killer choruses into bridges and outros, not so strong on verses. Whoever produced this seemed to have a vision for songs and brought a lot to it. Holy Water rips. This record would be a good long drive listen. Probably the one I’d be most interested to listen to again. Mark seems to be stuggling rn, but dude is a killer drummer and it shows on this one.
Annnnd now I’m going to revisit Tidal Wave in its entirety because it’s been a minute since I’ve heard it in full.
Best review of Tidal Wave imo. I wish I could like Holy Water more, I still just can't get into Adam's voice on that one.
Halfway thru my Tidal Wave revisit, and “I Felt It Too” still gives me chills the same way it did the first time I heard it. One of favorite TBS songs of all time.
Finished 152. I appreciate the vibes, didn’t love the auto tune, pitch correction. Smiles was a stand out. I like that it’s a tight 30 minutes and TBS’s take on ballady dream pop on this one. That was super fun to do a run through on a bunch of records on a band I’ve been sleeping on for over a decade. The Fred Era is my favorite but it’s wild how different these albums with John and Shaun are to the OG releases. If they do a Louder Now tour I will 100% scoop tickets. I really hope they do a record with Fred next. Also I love people showing up to hear the TBS hits on this tour are going to get their brains melted by Foxing opening. Will probably go back and listen to their first 3. Louder Now tour with AVA is a top 10 shows of all time for me. Shoutout to The Rave in Milwaukee. Lots of special memories at that venue growing up.
I'm not a fan of the autotune/pitch correction either but I've come realize that if it wasn't there, the vocals wouldn't mesh as well with the sleek/shiny production so I just take them as there and try to focus on something else on the music. I am so stoked for Foxing. I'm 4 albums into their discography and they're awesome!
That there are actually people out there that think New Again is their best album, let alone a better album than S/T is really mind-boggling. S/T has some signature TBS songs on it, New Again has arguably 2 ok/good songs on it...
152 WYWTB New Again …haven’t listened to another full album besides those three in too long to have any other well defined opinions, lol. Those get the job done for me.
So is Mark moving his whole album thing around now that he and Eddie are cool again? Looks like they in a studio working on / taking promo shots for something.
TAYF WYWTB Self titled Happiness Is Louder now — Tidal wave — — 152 (listened to new again once when it came out and have never revisited it) self titled is pretty much perfect, happiness is is good but has endured less to me over time, louder now has always been overrated (although with some bangers), tidal wave is mostly a skip, 152 is awful and the most boring thing they’ve ever done