Second listen through now. Like I said, I liked it the first listen through, but because it was late I had my monitors down a bit. Cranking the volume a bit now and it does wonders for my enjoyment. I was iffy on Wake Me, but it just finished and I think I'm about it now. Excited to hear Hold My Breath.
hmm. Rapture, Wake Me, and Bloodlust are just not my cup of tea. Also, Spencer singing is fine for choruses, but he really doesn't sound great at all when he sings soft, like the verses of Bloodlust. Aaron seems terribly underutilized here. It Has to Start Somewhere, On My Teeth, and Hold Your Breath are easy standouts. I hope it grows on me.
Man, I'm digging this so much more than I expected I would. The only things not doing it for me are Rapture, Wake Me, and the choruses of Bloodlust and ihateit. Other than that this album slays. The run of Hold Your Breath through I Gave Up is incredible.
The more I go through this album the happier I am they made something like this. Even if I don't think it'll rank above their last 3 for me, and TOCS will always have a special thing going on for it, I'm really really fuckin happy this exists and that I think it really is a great album.
When I got to No Frame I just played it twice in a row before moving on to the rest of the record because it's that good.
I’m liking this a lot more than I expected. There are some really cool moments and Chris does great work throughout. I was worried the snare would be too overpowering after hearing the singles but I actually don’t mind it on most songs.
This album is so conflicting for me. I really like some of the songs, but in my opinion, the front half of the album is some of the worst material they've put out. Wake Me sounds like a song by twentyonepilots, which is fine, but UO has always been on another level in terms of songwriting. Then they throw songs like In Motion, ihateit, and No Frame which are some of the best songs they've put out. I'm fine with the direction they went in, but I also think they are the only band that can release something like DTGL and LITSOS, and this bums me out a bit. Those albums were just so lush, deep, and heartbreaking and this is not.
Hold Your Breath is awesome, and I really wish more of the album had the urgency and bite that this one does.
Making my way through for the first time. I like it overall. Ihateit is one of my favorites so far. And the song that follows it.
after watching some of the making of vids on youtube, it's pretty obvious that the producer had a lot to do with the different sound of the album. they literally had the songs done to the point where they were ready to start recording drums as soon as they hit the studio, but instead the producer insisted on 2-3 weeks to rewrite the songs, even though the band had already done their own preproduction demos. in one video aaron looked actually a bit pissed that he was re setting up and recording drums just a few days before the album was supposed to be wrapped up. there were entire sections written with "guitar and bass" to be added over it. i'm really curious to hear those original demos, i'd love to know what the songs were like before they were rewritten...
No Frame kind of sounds like Code Orange at times. That's a compliment. Also the ending of it is the best clean singing Spencer has ever done IMO. More of that, less of the softer singing. EDIT: Ending of In Motion is killer. Chorus is kind of meh, but the rest is killer. The "there is no fix" part creeps up on you fast and it is awesome.
I think my biggest gripe with this album is that I really don’t like Spencer as the main clean vocalist, it’s the reason I can’t listen to Sleepwave, there’s just something about his voice that I can’t past. Also some of the choruses are just so boring and weak. I’ll spend more time with it because Underoath has been one of my favorite bands for a long time and was so influential to my music taste growing up, but this is super disappointing first listen through. Really don’t like Rapture and Wake Me.
I think this is a mischaracterization of what happened. In those videos, the band was referring to what they did on previous records. They weren't surprised by the preproduction, they wanted it or they would've went to someone else. That said, Squire definitely had a hand in the sonic direction, but again, that's why they went with him. If they didn't want that, they would've gone somewhere else.