The Menzingers - Hello Exile (October 4, 2019) Album • Page 46

It also won’t leave my head.

 

This is a band graduating from MTV to Vh1.

Hello Exile is a kind of by the books Menzingers album, yet has a fresh sound as well. And I didn’t realize it until I was towards the end of the album, but most of the “by the books” feeling all comes from Greg’s songs just because his writing style & singing has defined the band’s sound. The singles feel like typical Menzingers. But Greg’s songs (non-singles) & Tom’s songs almost both feel like what we’d get from them on a solo album. Familiar, yet something fresh and new. Tom’s songs were the stand outs for me just because they separated themselves from the rest of the album. They brought kind of a brighter feeling to the album. This is going to be a very good album on an early Fall/Winter morning.

It’s weird that Toy Soldiers, The Freaks, No Penance & Cemetary’s Garden were After the Party b-sides. They feel like the came from the same writing sessions as Hello Exile did. But with the energy/pacing of After the Party had. The band maybe should have released them as an EP instead. It would have been a wonderful bridge between After the Party and Hello Exile.

The Menzingers has never been a band where you could hear another artist’s sound in their songs. But I got real big Green Day vibes from this album. Warning / Nimrod mostly all throughout. “Strawberry Mansion” sounds like a more aggressive American Idiot / 21st Century Breakdown song.

“Farewell Youth” is already an essential Menzingers song.

 

I'll say right away that "Farewell Youth" is their best closer.

 

Holding til tomorrow to listen/buy the album, but just here to say that The Freaks is my favorite menzingers song

 

I’ve listened to the song twice and with confidence I 100% agree.

 

I played it twice in a row in the car this evening and just kept turning up the volume.

 

I'm waiting till tomorrow morning on the Apple Music stream so i can listen to this over brekkie

 

I haven't had a chance to listen to this yet, but this statement has me very excited to hear this song.

 

Also, I LOVE that little riff in "Portland."

 

Bummed because the leak I listened to had an incorrect tracklisting. Excited to hear it how it was meant to be heard at midnight!!!

 

Finally finished this. Man, am I underwhelmed. As someone else said, the Tom songs are the standouts. I need to sit with lyrics and the songs a bit more, obviously, but I'm pretty bummed out by this

 

Oh tight fare well youth is the closer. Thought it was song 3...

 

Excited to dive into this at work tomorrow! How is the first listen of this compared to the first listen of ATP?

 

Much more subdued haha. I suspect it is a work that will unravel itself over time.

 

You could just not listen to the stuff you don’t like haha

 

These songs feel different than ATP in my opinion.

 

Well that’s the worst comment I’ve seen all day.

 

Another thing we could do is not jump to judgments on an album we've had for less than 12 hours?

 

The thing I value about music the most is if I like it, and therefore I try to listen to the music I like the most and avoid the music I don’t like. Sometimes, the same band falls into both categories, but life goes on.

 

Yeah but my values don’t include wishing artists stop making art or their career so

 

This really doesn’t sound anything like After the Party for me. Definitely a little darker, a little more restrained, a lot more melancholy. It doesn’t feel like a band stagnating to me at all. Definitely not to the point where I’d be like “Welp, time to hang it up!”

 

I need the temperature to drop a little down here in Florida before this album can really hit with me. Definitely feels like a chilly night sitting on the patio kind of album.

 

this didn't really hit me at all but I'm sick and scatterbrained today, for sure need to give it a more focused listen. I'm a new fan, having jumped on with ATP so I don't have much to compare it to

 

Getting through my first listen and enjoying it a lot. So far it seems to continue the trend of Tom's songs having more interesting twists and turns musically. High School Friend sounded a bit like if Warning-era Green Day wrote Mexican Guitars.

EDIT
Definitely a lot more mid-tempo. Title track is the first time I've noticed Americana sounds. Portland is giving me the strongest Rented World vibes (especially the repetition in the chorus) but I think it sounds more Menzingers-y than most of that record which makes it more palatable for my feeble tastes.

EDIT TWO
Okay the closer is definitely one of their best songs, and easily their best closer at least since Chamberlain Waits.

 

Huh, initial listen wasn't loving it. Gotta spend more time with it but it didn't touch me aside from the singles and a couple other moments. I can't see myself liking this anywhere close to RW