Beginning of Blame reminds me of Numb, But I Still Feel It by Title Fight which makes so much sense given Ken’s love for them.
I See How It Is, Blame, and Enjoyment are the three for me. I do love this whole record despite still needing the final two tracks to grow on me. I’m just happy that we have a new TSL record after 18 long years :)
Had high expectations and somehow the album exceeds them. Absolutely love the production and wouldn’t change a thing.
I think the coolest thing about this record for me is that it doesn't have an ounce of "band trying to recapture the magic." It just bangs.
This is really good. Not a bad song on here for me. I love his voice now. It adds a gruffness to their sound that I think works really well, and it’s a nice change compared to a lot of the vocals you get in this genre.
Also, how cool that we get great comeback records from Motion City Soundtrack and The Starting Line so close together. Next up, Yellowcard.
Defeating the Purpose is definitely heavy title fight influence. You can hear it over all the album haha it rules
I do enjoy how honest Kenny is about his own music and those of their contemporaries. Early on he's saying how he felt some releases from other scene bands in recent years didn't have much artistic merit. He's definitely a purist (e.g. pretentious).
Good Charlotte, Green Day, Blink 182… I mean, the list of bands from that era putting out tepid albums is pretty long.
what Kenny had to say about the production from Rolling Stone Australia: The Starting Line are Back 'Full Force' with New Album "I mean, there’s no effects on the record, there’s no delay, there’s no pitch correction. It’s very true to form of how we sound on a stage, which I don’t think we’ve ever gotten to do before, you know? Explaining it like that makes it sound like it’s going to be like a raw undercooked punk record, but it’s not. I think it’s a perfectly-cooked punk record that doesn’t need much seasoning, [it] just needs salt and pepper and a little bit of olive oil. And that’s all we gave it."
Curious how he’s meaning “no effects” in that sentence cause I can hear layered vocals, pretty sure a few punch ins, and other “studio” effects on the songs.
There was some more detail in one of the other interviews/articles that was posted. I think he was exaggerating and didn’t literally mean “no effects”, just that they tried to minimize the studio “trickery” as much as they could. Like if they recorded a part with delay or a chorus pedal they then tried it without and usually liked the more raw version better.
That makes more sense. I feel similar to like CGI in movies — it’s all about who uses the tools and how.
Very true. And it’s also like salt on food, it’s supposed to be there to enhance. If you can really notice that means you’ve used too much.
I’ve never rally listened to The Starting Line, but I heard it in a Taylor Swift song once. (And some singles back in the day.) Gonna dive in today. Edit: Island was DEFINITELY on a mix I made for my wife when we were dating 16 years ago.
I think many people will have a tough time getting into the album because of this. General public has gotten used to the polished sound of the three albums so this is off putting in a sense.
I am not sure where people are getting this idea that this album sounds “rough”. Like nothing about this is rough.