I think the reason I was so disappointed with Coming Home was that it came on the heels of an album that I thought sounded so reinvigorated. This band was probably the most important band in the world to me during my college years (2009-2013), but I felt like Golden Record was a big step down, and then they broke up amidst some pretty disheartening drama, and then they came back with an album that I liked a lot but didn't come close to scraping the heights of those first two albums. Then Mother Nature came out and it paved a path forward for this band that I didn't know was there. It inspired me to write one of the most effusive reviews I ever wrote for this site. In comparison, Coming Home felt so uninspired to me, and seemed to squander a lot of the new potential I'd heard on Mother Nature. I don't think it's a BAD album, but I think there was a chance for this band to have, as @Jason Tate said, a second act like The Maine have had, and I don't think they're getting there with their current approach to writing music and making albums.
the quality of the music isnt really what my point is when i bring up max. the recent say anything releases have some fans, the recent TDS releases have some fans, but overextending yourself as a writer can easily lead to burn out, undercooked ideas, and diminishing returns in the fan base even if what you're putting out is technically good. some artists have really prolific eras that bring great stuff, some artists dont. i think TDS is stumbling and its easy to see why, as jason said coming home clearly could've used more passes in the writing phase i dont know how that could be argued against and i even think its a decent enough album. again, the quick release schedule that they've taken since mother nature is clearly one with financial longevity in mind, not artistic longevity and in this climate yeah thats fair but lets call it what it is
I find it interesting Christian is back on Drums after quitting mid tour.. But I think he's phenomenal, (especially live) so that rocks he's the Drummer again
Yeah, basically what Craig said. I find myself not being super optimistic about the band these days not specifically because their last couple releases have been middling, but because at this point Mother Nature seems like the clear outlier in their post hiatus work. That album felt like it should’ve been a huge jumping off point for the new era of the band, but in hindsight it just feels like they caught lightning in a bottle and either weren’t aware or chose to ignore what made MN so great in the first place.
I recall a video where the band went through each song on Coming Home. I was excited for some insights that I hoped might help me better appreciate the tracks. Basically every song was the same anecdote - they got fucked up in the studio and by 3am felt like whatever they were working on was amazing.
Coming Home is fine. It’s just too by the books. Especially after taking a giant step forward with Mother Nature.
I think the first four tracks off Coming Home are great, and then there are probably two songs after that I care about at all. Slap those six together with the Blue Sky EP (which I don't super love, but think is a nice pivot into more midtempo/ballad-y territory) and I think you have a solid fifth album.
Haha. It goes back to the editing issue. Because that riff could have built to something special. But yeah they are not shy about what they ingest and I can imagine everything starts to sound pretty amazing after a long night of mind altering. All this said I'll defend Meet Me In The Morning any day (as you may have guessed no I do not speak Spanish).
Listening back to Mother Nature this morning, every single choice feels so deliberate and well thought out. The lyrics, the production, the more experimental flourishes, the way the album flows. It’s so weird that they did that to such success and then went in the “get fucked up and throw shit at the wall” route. And like, throwing shit at the wall is a great starting point, but it seems like they just hit record and went with what showed up on tape.
I’m not surprised they went for a more instinctive throw everything at the wall approach after a methodical calculated effort, it’s common for bands to have an album be a reaction to the last album, I just don’t think they were very good at doing it compared to like, Jimmy eat world stripping things back on surviving following integrity blues.
Lol. Let's hope that when the aliens get here they either bring help, or a time machine. Otherwise I'm not sure that's possible.
Thanks for asking! Spiritworld has been a great journey so far. I was really proud of the Eli Hurts songs I did. Lulu La. The Honesty. Jacob Price. You can hear all that here: I’ve got a lot of great stuff happening right now. New Duck Duck Goose & Heavy Heavy Low Low are both in development. Mixing the Ryan Carveo record right now. Also extremely stoked on my plug-in company https://purafied.com/ Got a new baby boy coming next month. Things have been really busy on my end. Going to start leaning into my own solo and collaborative songwriting a little more inside of my productions. Very thankful and stoked for my creative life.
Do you think if the band aspires to make a proper Mother Nature follow up, they have the ability to do so?