Major minor is the band hitting a groove with the blues rock of Beggars and wanting to make it heavy. It's like the antithesis of Vheissu where they took one sound and did everything possible with it while Vheissu was like putting a phardcore lens on all these different sounds.
theres not a direct parallel but theres something to be said about going be and rock and heavy and dark without succumbing to scene cliches. but theyre one of my favorite bands
Oh. My. God. The color on the Beggars LP looks amazing. I wish I didn't have the lame repress version. God damn. The Messenger, is way to heavy for my taste. Replace that with something else and Fire would have been perfect. Why do you say these things? Are you trying to hurt me? Which half is which? Which songs fall into which category?
Like most of M/M, it's just the lyrics that rubs me the wrong way. Listen Through Me is probably the worst of the bunch though. Way to preachy. I think Image of the Invisible takes the cake as their worst song... Feels like a TAITA C-side. It has no business being on Vheissu...
Some songs I like: The Weight, At The Last, Beggars Some Songs I'm not as big on: The Great Exchange, Wood And Wire, Circles After the brilliance that was Vheissu and the Fire cd on the Alchemy Index, the band started going in a mellower, bluesier direction with Air/Earth (Mainly Earth, Air is still pretty all right) and then Beggars that I was not as into as the majority of Thrice fans were. M/M was more my style of straight forward rock thrice, but still had its weak points. TBEITBN is where they managed to completely redeem themselves for me. I don't expect many of you to share this opinion, which is totally fair. I just think they had a bit of a slump between Fire/Water and TBEITBN and those 3 albums within that period are the ones I revisit the least. Side note: I'm not totally against bluesy Thrice. The Earth Will Shake and The Weight are both great songs. Heavy Thrice and (when they are on the mellower side) Atmospheric/electronic Thrice are more my go tos though. Sorry for the ramble, I know being meh about Beggars is unpopular so I wanted to clarify and think my answer through.
I think Beggars is my favorite all around album by them. Doublespeak, Circles, The Weight, In Exile, to be honest I could probably list all the songs on that album as being great, the only sore spot for me on that album is The Great Exchange.
Haha! Don't worry, thanks for elaborating. That's fair. It's funny how you manage to pick two of my favorite songs from Beggars (Wood and Wire and Circles), and how my biggest criticism of TBEITBN (how straight-forward it is) is probably what makes it great for you. Different strokes I guess. I think I would have loved TBEITBN if it came out when I was younger, nowadays I'm mostly looking for something more experiemental. It's still a solid record that I occasionally come back to. However, has Dustin ever matched the songwriting / storytelling that he displays on Wood and Wire? I think it's one of the strongest songs they've ever written, but I get that it's not for everyone!
I never thought about Fire being heavy but not in the cliche metalcore way. I guess that's why I love it so much, because a lot of metalcore I find cringey. Fire is so heavy and so freakin good. I would take a 12 song album all as heavy as Firebreather, The Messenger, The Arsonist, etc...
Half of Beggars is tracks 1-5 which are amazing and the the other half is tracks 6-10 which are wonderful.
Beggars is such a consistent record. The production suites it perfectly, and it has two of my fav Thrice songs(In Exile, Circles). Plus that riff in Talking Through Glass rips.
Only song I'm not that big on is Talking Through Glass. And I will accept no criticism of the title track.
No. TAITA sounds hollow as I keep saying. The mix is awful. Their dynamics and range were neutered by a label and production team that was just trying to capture a specific sound that was trending. Consequently, the songs sound too similar with a few exceptions. You have to understand: Illusion changed the game AT THE TIME. A few shops around town were playing it before its release and word spread fast. The hype was real and it delivered. TAITA was more of the same, only less, somehow. Because of Illusion, the music industry gobbled up every band like Thrice a la 90s Seattle. Records like TAITA are why the industry gave up so suddenly on this wave of bands. (Plus, there wasn't a promotional machine in place like there was in the 90s.) When I later learned about their ambivalence for TAITA, I wasn't at all surprised. At least it led to Vheissu. I, too, struggle with the Vheissu versus Beggars debate.
Every song does NOT sound the same. There are ones I love and ones I can't stand, like title-track, all that's left, and melting point. The ones where they start doing weird time stuff and cool heavy parts are pretty distinct from the really pop ones