Personally I prefer The Maine writing really substantial pop songs (LLL, American Candy) to their less-than-impressive attempts at being less-than-accessible (Forever Halloween). I don't think they have a bad record, but I think there are a looooooot of bands that do gloomy indie rock better than they do.
i got on board during the American Candy cycle after disregarding them for some reason back when i saw them touring off B&W. the new one is really good and i can see it being my favorite, but i need to go through the back catalogue some more
Sometimes I like John's voice while other times I'm not a fan of it like on the newest release. I still think the best he's ever sounded was on their debut.
I am borderline obsessed with Lovely Little Lonely at this point. I’m not sure where it falls in their catalog for me yet, but I don’t care. I love this and it’s going to be on all the time this summer.
Oh man, ranking is hard, but: American Candy Lovely Little Lonely (I could see these two switching places after I spend more time with LLL, though, we'll see) Pioneer Black and White Can't Stop Won't Stop Forever Halloween Pioneer and B&W are almost interchangeable depending on the day/my mood but Pioneer is obviously better and more true to them as a band.
I just love this record so much. It's so tight and flows so well. Normally the interludes would piss me off but it just all works. Wonderful job.
That's prollyyyy the same for me. Except I'd put LLL first. Pioneer has amazing highs, but more lows than AC and LLL
That "breakdown" or whatever you want to call it in the second verse of The Sound Of Reverie is so dirty
Only album I don't like by them is Black and White. I like maybe half the songs on Forever Halloween, but I wish they went the direction they did with the song Love & Drugs. I remember being pretty disappointed the rest of the album wasn't anywhere close to the direction of that song. Take What You Can Carry, Run, and Fucked Up Kids are cool songs though.
I've only ever heard music from Can't Stop, Won't Stop about 10 years ago. Never even gave any of their other albums a shot as I wasn't into that style of music anymore. That being said, I have been completely hooked by LLL and went back into their discography and really enjoy a lot of it. American Candy is pretty great and a mix of songs off of Pioneers and FH are pretty good too.
No one is mentioning the B sides to this album, if you bunch those with this album it's probably Top 2 for me...
I've never listened to an album by The Maine before but damn this new one is pretty good so far (half way through). All these songs are crazy catchy. I could see some of these getting big on the radio.
Update: Finished my first listen through, everything is pretty great. Will be listening to this much more.
The "And I never knew, how much I was gettin' into" line is almost as catchy as the chorus for some reason, haha. To me, at least.