I was trying to pick out the lyric that hooked me. I know it's from If You Could Only Keep Me Alive so I'm listening to it now and I really really love all of the lyrics from this and can't pick what one hooked me in. Probably the chorus and second verse of the title track And then the sun, it hit my face And made me think of all the things that made me pray Like when I stood up all this cocaine hit my heart Then all the sudden I'm in love Oh God, it's almost summer I hope addiction took my heart because I'm Looking for a hook that could just Hold me back from tearing out these speakers It's not the sound that drowns me out But all this doubt that broke me down You were my friend, but now I'm taking you to hell
yeah I get some TDAG era Brand New mixed with some METN era Manchester Orchestra with that song. It works really well.
i remember when golden record came out everyone who had heard the record before me was like "yeah knives is definitely gonna be jake's favorite" and well it was lol
Hearing Catholic Girls first made my expectations for GR way too high. I still think that's their best song. I do like the album though, aside from the last few songs.
Parts of GR grew on me but nothing on it comes anywhere beat the first two albums for me. AJs voice on it, the muddiness of the way it sounds...perhaps all intentional, but for me those things take away from the excellent melodies that made me love the band.
The "I turned my back on the rope tied to my ceiling, there's a reason I won't go there anymore" line on Sins gives me chills every time.
A tornado leveled my childhood home in WI right around the time Catholic Girls was released. That line "even with the walls around me, I'll always miss the place where I grew up, it made us tough." always reminded me of my childhood and my siblings. The entire song reminds me of just growing up and leading four very different lives now. It brings back such fond memories considering we were all so close in age and now live all over the nation and aren't nearly as close as we were.
Still makes me sad thinking about what this band might have accomplished if they had been able to hold it together. I'm just glad I was the age I was when Reach and War Paint came out, because those records were serious soundtrack-of-my-life shit. Despite everything, they'll always be one of my favorite bands.
It really is. One of their most relatable songs for me, and they have a lot of those. This thread has me listening to all their albums for the first time in months. They really know how to write openers, my favorite song on every album is the first.
I adored Reach for the Sun so, so, so, so, so much. Like, threatens to be included with my albums of the decade, it just hit the perfect spot with me at 17-18 years old or whatever and I just fucking treasured it. Which is why it's so weird to me that I am so cold on every single other thing this band did. Even War Paint I just didn't connect with at all. I'm not sure there's another band or artist who made one thing that meant so much to me and then I just couldn't connect with anything else they did in any way.
Like others (I'm sure), I just decided after they stole from me on multiple occasions that I couldn't support them anymore. That said - I honest to God didn't dislike a single song throughout their four releases. RFTS was a top 5-10 record for me, and undoubtedly the most listened to album between, say, 2009-2012. Just so good. And the acoustic version may well have been better. It's really too bad - I just couldn't listen to them without feeling like I was being lied to and taken advantage of (I still have the RFTS 'signed' chord book in a drawer next to me). Maybe that's an issue with me; maybe I should be more forgiving or just separate the people from the music or whatever. But I just couldn't after awhile. They really are a 'what could have been' band for me.
I love how atmospheric the guitars are on this bands music. Cody lays the foundations with a steady chord progression and then Matt/Bryan drop these textured, intricate lead lines that add so much to the songs. Then AJs bass beefs up the backdrop with a buoyant, deep tone that adds even more dynamic to the tracks. The subtle tempo shifts and key changes throughout also add a lot of variety. I guess I've just never quite understood the "all these songs sound the same" critique. Surface level they do but once you really listen you can hear how diverse this band is. Basically what I'm trying to say is this band is decent I guess idk