The Bouncing Souls Band • Page 6

The timing of certain aspects of the souls like the chunky bass parts, Pete’s “happy chords”, and the whoa ohs and ahhs all have perfect placement. I also feel like George feels in the pocket with this batch of songs. Again, the placement of the double time punk beats and bringing in some hardcore influenced two step parts just feels so good. And Will Yip nailed the band’s sound on this.

 

Yeah, everybody nailed their parts. And FWIW, this album is worth listening to on a nice pair of headphones. There's a lot of nuance.

I'm biased but when I heard the new version of "Andy & Jackie," and the way the bass sounded going into that bridge... So. Fucking. Good! There's something very "Green Day" about that part of the song and his playing there.

 

I really enjoyed the album but am I the only one that thought the vocal mix on certain songs is not good at all? Specially on Vin and Casey, can barely hear the vocals and kills the song for me

 

I’m enjoying this!

 

Realllllllly liked this on first listen. More than the last album from what I remember too.

And yes, vocals are weirdly low on Vin and Casey.

 

I’m not having that vocal issue, but if I focus on Vin I can sort of hear it. I also listen to a lot of small band demos and budget recordings so maybe my ears are primed a little differently.

In general, I would say I really like this production overall bc it highlights each aspect of the band while still feeling real and sort of raw. I think my problem with some of the modern punk bands is the production that is too pristine or perfect. So to go back to the vocals here, yeah, they probably aren’t perfect on Vin, but that probably registered with me subconsciously instead of the opposite.

 

The guitars sound fantastic on this.

 

Also, To Be Human might be might favorite track as of right now.

 

What do you guys think about a Souls ranking? Mine would be:

1. Anchors Aweigh
2. How I Spent My Summer Vacation
3. The Gold Record
4. Hopeless Romantic
5. Ghosts On The Boardwalk
6. Maniacal Laughter
7. The Bouncing Souls
8. Simplicity
9. The Good, The Bad and The Argyle
10. Comet

I absolutely love The Crucial Moments EP and Anti-Flag split, and their new record would definitely be in the top five, but a little bit too early to rank it.

 

Vacation
Laughter
Self titled
Hopeless Romantic
Anchors
Gold Record
Ghosts
Simplicity
Comet
The Good, The Bad

New one would come in around Gold and Simplicity. Probably after Gold and before Ghosts. But I need more time to the new record sheen wear off to properly rank it.

 

1.) How I Spent My Summer Vacation
2.) Anchors Aweigh
3.) Hopeless Romantic
4.) Ten Stories High
5.) Maniacal Laughter
6.) The Gold Record
7.) The Bouncing Souls
8.) Ghosts on The Boardwalk
9.) The Good, The Bad, and the Argyle
10.) Comet
11.) Simplicity

If we were counting EPs, Crucial Moments would probably be #6 and the Anti-Flag split would be #5. Those are killer releases!

I've spent enough time with the new one to confidently slot it in at #4 for now but I feel like my take on all these records changes every six months or so (except Simplicity which just feels like them kinda phoning it in).

That said, from 1-7 is just all records that are front-to-back unstoppable for me. Records 8-10 all have a bunch of bright spots, and while some of those highs are really high the lows are just too low to ignore. Simplicity isn't even a "bad" album... It's just kind of forgettable.

 

my 2023 goal (one of them) was to listen to more music, and i set a goal to listen to 365 new albums in 2023, which so far has mainly led to me diving down discogs of artists ive never really gotten into. These folks are next.

 

That is an ambitious goal! Haha. Good luck and let us know what you think! The Souls are a super fun band to listen to from start to finish because of the way their sound evolved over the years. After a certain point it sort of "steadies" and they just start writing songs that sound like the Bouncing Souls when they have a fully recognized sound... But that's when they really start honing their songwriting too.

 

You can also simply break their records down by their drummer eras. Shal’s last album was Hopeless. Then it’s Mike from Vacation through Comet. Then George is everything after.

 

There would be no Menzingers without the Souls (and Lawrence Arms), so hopefully you enjoy running through the records. Best people, best band.

 

1.) How I Spent My Summer Vacation
2.) Maniacal Laughter
3.) Hopeless Romantic
4.) The Bouncing Souls
5.) Anchors Aweigh
6.) The Gold Record
7.) Ghosts On The Boardwalk
8.) The Good, The Bad, and the Argyle
9.) Comet
10.) Simplicity

Best band

Agree that Ten Stories would probably go right after or before Gold Record but need more time with it. Crucial Moments would be right next to it as well

The AF split is severely underrated

 

The bottom three records can flip flop for me depending on the day. Hopeless Romantic and self titled can also flip for me as well.

 

100% agree

 

Does anybody know of any other bands with bass players who play like and/or use a bass tone similar to Brian? The closest I can think of is the Lippies... And even that's only on a few songs ("302" being the most obvious example). Hah.

 

I'm waiting for a nice day and a nice drive to listen to this through so ill grade and judge later but ranking sould albums? Thats interesting. One of my favorite bands but idk if they have that many albums that are top to bottom great. But my favorite has always been oddly

Gold album. That's the one album that j feel like has the best top to bottom.

Otherwise every album gives me about 4 great bops to make a fantastic best of

 

hmm, maybe A Wilhelm Scream?

 

Anyone go to BS/Anti-Flag/AWS yet? Looking for set times if ya remember

 

Caught them in 2000 supporting Green Day on the Warning tour and then had ticket to see them I'm pretty sure on 9/11 which of course was cancelled. So keen to catch them in the UK again.

 

I'm going tomorrow and Friday so I can share after!

 

Went last night in Buffalo, walked in a song or so into AWS but it was something like

Doors 6
Anti-Flag 8:40
Souls 9:50