My clear first press goes for a decent amount these days I saw some ranging 70-150 in different variants than my clear
I went on a rabbit hole recently and found out I’m sitting on some gold in my collection and had no idea
I don't think I ever gave Disambiguation a fair shot. I'll put it on now. EDIT: Found myself thinking the drums rule. Looked up who played drums on this. Of course. Is Davison the best drummer from this scene?
Yeah Disambiguation is great. The same thing another poster was saying, I enjoyed the whole thing but there wasn't a certain part or hook that stuck with me after listening. I also like pretending Erase Me doesn't exist, so I just went straight from Disambiguation to Voyeurist and it wasn't too jarring. One more thing, I REALLY don't like Spencer's strictly clean singing. When he's riding that line and frequently switching between harsh/gritty clean, I'm cool with it, but when he tries to sing softer it doesn't work for me at all. With that said, he is one of my FAVORITE harsh vocalists. He sounds absolutely massive at times on Disambiguation.
I have the Disambiguation picture disc with the sweet photo book. Loved the art direction on that album. It was wild that at the time Aaron left the idea of filling his shoes felt impossible and then Daniel came in with song ideas and a massive influence on that record that make it a 1/1 in the discography. I saw them on the cool tour when they brought Daniel on and the record wasn't out yet and then saw them again on the farewell tour in Chicago. That lineup was completely bonkers. ACB when they weren't even a band at that time, MWY, and Letlive. One of my favorite shows ever. I saw them a number of times after the reunion and the farewell show is still my favorite.
This thread prompted me to revisit Disambiguation for the first time in years. I listened to it a fair amount back when it came out, but I was such an Aaron guy that the thought of Underoath without him just felt lesser to me and I think I just automatically shoved it toward the bottom of their discography and rarely returned, especially since the reunion. God damn, it's so good. Now bummed that I skipped the vinyl forever ago.
I think I had the vinyl from Hot Topic a long time ago. Maybe a picture disc? I probably sold it for pennies when I first discovered the vinyl collective forums.
Oh dang this is actually the reason why I love DTGL and LITSOS so much. It made for more of a journey with each song and less of a formula.
So brace yourself. Today on my drive to work I listened to about half of Erase Me and on the way back home I listened to about half of Lost In The Sound Of Separation. My thoughts are complicated. I think it boils down to this. I think a lot of bands make the mistaken assumption that trying to be more accessible means changing their sound to what they think mainstream audiences want, and I think that's a fallacy. Erase Me does have, in my mind, songs that are more easily remembered because I can associate a chorus with them. But I can see why someone coming off the previous albums would be disappointed, because there feels like a lack of adventurousness in the songs themselves. LITSOS, on the other hand, has interesting passages and bits that I feel get lost. I enjoyed what I was listening to, but I could not tell you which song was which. It just kind of feels like one big song with different passages. But what's happening as a whole is more interesting than Erase Me. So going back to the fallacy, I think what I'd hoped for is what they do on LITSOS but presented in a more accessible way. I'm thinking about the last Avenged Sevenfold album and what M. Shadows said about their approach: if they had a chorus, they didn’t play it the same way twice. They did something different, slowed it down, or changed it in some way so it wasn't the same thing repeated. That keeps it musically interesting and engaging. I think Underoath should have had an approach like that on Erase Me. I mean, symphonies can have a motif, but it's not always played exactly the same each time it pops up.
I’m an open-minded person. That said, LITSOS is a masterpiece and I refuse to entertain alternative opinions.
This is why I think Voyeurist is the best of both worlds, and is my favorite from the band. It's pretty varied and adventurous, while also having some pretty big choruses for me to hook onto. but if I'm being honest with myself I'm really probably going to love anything the band does so
Which, the part about them being open-minded or the part about them refusing to entertain alternative opinions?
Just yesterday I mentioned declining lyricism but I feel like metalcore is absolutely starved for unique vocalists too, both screamers and cleans. Whether low pitched growlers and higher pitched screamers so many of them sound indecipherable from each other and recycle the same melodies. Then you listen to Spencer or other guys like Cory Brennan, etc and their voices are immediately recognizable, they throw their voices around and do different things. Just so much more character. Spencer in particular though, like you said, massive. I miss that era so badly.
Yeah I tend to get bored quickly when screams sound pretty much the same the entire time. Spencer has so much range in what he does it never gets boring.
The Devil Wears Prada's screamer is another one that stands out to me. He just sounds unhinged lol and the way he incorporates yells and growls adds variation in his performances