The Wonder Years Band • Page 181

This clearly sounds much better. I never really had much issue with the original production though. I still think this album is their least cohesive (post Upsides). It suffers from feeling like a collection of songs rather than something that has thread, which this band is usually great at.

The highs are very high though.

 

the bridge to that song is like the skeleton key for this whole record imo

 

Yessssss you get it. Wonder where this would go in the sequence if it made the cut.

 

Fine I'll say it, remix/remaster elevates this above Sister Cities and The Hum Goes On Forever.

I just can't help but wonder about this album sounding like this when it came out. TWY were one of my favorite bands when TGG dropped, and if this album had rode that same wave for me I'd view the band a lot differently than I do now.

 

The marching snare pattern with the accents during the first verse of ...Brave

Mike Kennedy may be a bad friend but he's a fucking beast of a drummer

 

this uhh... was always better than SC and Hum. sorry

 

SC, yes, probably. Hum is their best record to date on some days, TGG on others.

 

Crazy how clearer this thing now sounds, even on Spotify lol

 

Yea, good shit.

now jimmy eat world do damage

 

damn this sounds great

 

Hum is fantastic, and is more consistent than this record, but the highs on here are absolutely stratospheric.

I still don’t really care about Palm Reader much, and I find the title track boring. But everything else is very good to world-beating.

I’d be interested to hear this with SC, as it’s the only record of theirs I’m lukewarm on. Some good stuff on it, but it just never really clicked as a whole.

 

On my 5th listen, still hearing new things - continue to echo the comments elsewhere: everything has space to breathe, the vocals are way clearer, you can properly hear 3 guitarists now, etc etc. Crazy how good it is.

Two things throwing me:
- Bluest Things: The drums right before the final chorus (2:43) are so much lower in the mix vs. the original!
- Palm Reader: There's some weird background vocal (like a "Hey") on 1:46/47

 

SC is still my favorite record of theirs. But this is a beast now.

 

Man this is amazing. The production made me not listen to this album as much as I should have. This sounds phenomenal. It’s doing the same thing Gaslight remastering History Books did for me, it’s like a whole new album.

 

Where pre-orders

 

What a fucking great record and I'm so glad it's got the mix it deserves.

I always thought the band, especially Dan sounded absolutely exhausted on Palm Reader and it just sounded incredibly muddy and rushed which is reflected obviously in him saying they just wanted to get the album out and over with, but it sounds absolutely huge here.

Think overall this is third for me behind TGG and Suburbia (for different reasons) but man their run since Upsides has been ridiculous.

 

Palm Reader was among my favourite songs of 2015 but now we're having the opposite issue where it's surrounded by massively improved songs on all sides. Seems a bit buried now but that's all fine, I need to adjust to the redux version.

 

Echoing this threads major statement lately, but this sounds so much better than it used to in a way that is forcing me to reevaluate my stance on this record. Always felt like it had some major highs but there was something so muddy about the sound that I didn't feel like parsing through, so I never really returned to it. Everything is hitting with a different kind of intensity now that I can feel Mike Kennedy's drum beats chipping away at what's left of the hearing I have at 32 as a result of a careless teenager's penchant for blasting music in my earbuds so loud that I might as well have been playing them on speaker. (An Old Head's Lament).

Lyrics written ten years ago that are tearing me to pieces with how they're somehow more applicable to what we're being inundated with daily. Dan's vocals sound fucking PRISTINE too. I'm just in absolute awe how an album that ranked lower for me in their catalog of untouchable records has skyrocketed into maybe 4th place?

This one will be with me for the rest of the year, easy.

 

I think this is now their third best record behind TGG and Hum. Insane glowup.

 

THIS GODDAMN MACHINE, HUNGRY AND HEARTLESS. MY WHOLE GENERATION GOT LOST IN THE MARGINS.

Like, byeeeeeee.

 

Yeah I think I can safely say Cigarettes and Saints is their best song. Might would've said it before, definitely saying it now.

 

The instrumental break in "Bluest Things" absolutely floored me.

Love(d) the original album - the songs were always really strong even if the production was lacking and the sequencing is a little iffy - but this totally reinvigorates the album for me.

 

It's like we just got a brand new TWY album today except you already know you love it beforehand

 

The chorus of Thanks for the Ride is an underappreciated highlight of their career.

 

Absolutely loved that part! Really cool touch.