CW's still my favorite by them, but I dig on all their records after that. Hello Exile is a getting a bit too poppy for my tastes though.
They don’t feel like a full band singer songwriter deal to me…they feel like a band. I get songs like HE have a folkier sound, but it’s a song on the record and not the feel of the full record to me.
I wouldn’t do a side by side comparison with Gaslight, but I really feel that these are two “like bands” in terms of trajectory fan base.
I think Gaslight definitely was bigger at their peak, but i’m not sure Menzingers have gotten there yet.
And they most likely will not. Gaslight may have been a little more accessible, but both are have a certain determination and approach that makes them easy to have in the same conversation.
OTIP will forever be my favourite. For me it has the consistency of HE and the highs of ATP all in one. I can undertstand people thinking ATP especially is better (it's close). Which gets me to my point: OTIP was so widely beloved and defining and instant-classic, it seemed destined to forever be THE Meninzgers album. That it's not, and that it's widely considered their second or even third best record at this point, shows just how amazing this band is.
When you factor in a the album era, for me it’s ATP. The Freaks, Toy Soldier, album bsides. Plus I think production sounds great, songs capture some of the magic from previous albums, and the ATP music video is so fitting.
Put Cemetery's Garden on ATP instead of Thick as Thieves and you might convince me based on that alone that it's better than HE as a whole.
What!? "I held up a liquor store demanding top-shelf metaphors" might be the best line on the whole album.
1. OTIP 2. HE 3. RW 4. ATP 5. CW I still having trouble why everyone sees After The Party as a classic, the highs are very high but the lows are very low either and I’m having a bit trouble with the flow on that record, especially in the middle. I think Rented World is really underrated too. OTIP is just a classic in every sense of the word, anthem after anthem after anthem, and HE is their attempt to go for that Springsteen-Gaslight anthem sound/style while still sounding like The Menzingers and did they did a perfect job with that. Anyway, great great band.