Just finished this, first listen was fantastic. Albatross, Undertow, Holding On, Vesper Light are my favorites with Vesper Light taking the crown, so good. Crooked Shadows and Unitive/West are the ones I’m not feeling. I really don’t like how these last 2 albums end, and having such a fantastic song like Vesper Light which should have been the closer, just sours a bit with the next track.
Intrigued by this—I wondered what the feel of Unitive/West would be. Not really sure what they were aiming for the ambient vibe on the last record: Dandelion Wine may not quite be closer material but I think it's better than just trailing off, for lack of a better phrase.
That's all I could listen to before I had to get to befor I had to get back to real life. Such a strong first half! "Undertow" is incredible, and "Holding On" is (as some have said) the best HWM song of the year!
To be fair West is more of a song than East is, but it just felt like it should have ended on Vesper Light, might become easier on repeat listens.
I was totally preparing for the worst with the way some people were talking about crooked shadows, this is no Hold up the light, more akin to branch in the river, but it's own thing. Fun song.
Just through my first listen. Favorite off the bat would be Distant Suns! I wasn't sure what to think about this one ahead of time, as it seemed like the least talked about but I loved it. I had never heard Gnash or Albatross yet either. So it's all finally heard. I love how dancy Gnash is, I hope they continue to make more upbeat shit like this and Distant Suns.
I really like this. Glad to get to hear it early before other stuff can overtake my listening habits.
I wonder which song on this originally contained the line "there's water in the wi-fi". Do you guys remember that when /East was released Dustin was discussing how a companion album was in the works and one of the songs would include that line? He was describing how he initially sings nonsense syllables over the recorded music just to get a sense of what the vocal melody should be before writing the actual lyrics. He said that was one such thing that he decided to just keep in the final song. I didn't hear it anywhere though. Did it get re-worked? B-side?
Isn't the opening drum line on "Distant Suns" something they did on an earlier album? Like the opening of "Blur" or something.
I thought they recorded most of Horizons West, and then decided to scrap it and re-write almost everything. Maybe that got scrapped...?