BSN is crushed by the loud mastering. It might sound better than any of their others when it quiets down (like Spirit), but everything else gets shredded. Perfect example, as soon as you start "I Felt Free," the clipping and crackling are straight up intolerable to the point of total distraction for me.
Wow that’s a wild order. 1. On Letting Go 2. The Amulet 3. Blue Sky Noise 4. Juturna 5. Descensus 6. Violent Waves Violent Waves is the only one I don’t love.
I love individual tracks, but it is an EXHAUSTING listen because of Yip’s production. If it sounded like Amulet I’d have it ranked a lot higher.
I’m not a production expert by any means, but I’ll try my best to explain. Yip’s style is to have the drums be really loud, and all the instruments to sound very treble-y, and the vocals to be more buried. I like that style for a lot of bands (Title Fight’s Floral Green, B&C’s TTWTWM) but combined with Circa’s more spacey songwriting it just feels like my ears are tired after listening. I’ve never listened and thought, “yeah let’s just play that right back.” EDIT: just wanted to say I love Yip, and I’m really glad they went back to him and made The Amulet, because I feel like they really nailed it with that one (obviously based on my ranking).
Shoutout to 2007 when I wasn’t sure if it was Mandala or Paramore’s When It Rains when I was listening on shuffle.
Wow, that's not how I hear it at all. I'm listening right now and the vocals aren't buried. They do have that Yip sound, but I wouldn't use the word "buried" to describe it. I personally love his style, it feels like hearing the band live in a room, and the drums and other instruments feel well-balanced to me with a nice warm punch from the bass.
-act appalled is my vote -oh hello, IFAF, and AA were the first circa songs I liked and didn’t get into em again until BSN, but these days those 3 + were all thieves and nosebleed have remained my favs -get out is great -the first 3 records all sound different/good to me, the remaining ones all feel stifled by production. I always feel like I have to turn up the volume and they just feel very stuffy. Idk how else to describe it bc I too am a production novice but they just don’t feel pleasant on the ears.
Oh marron this thread. Half of you ain’t gonna be posting soon anymore and I don’t wanna hear none of that “hey what happened to such and such.”
On Letting Go Juturna The Amulet Blue Sky Noise Descensus Violent Waves but they don’t have a bad record
descensus has really good bookends, and I also quite like only the sun and nesting dolls. the rest of the album is ... I mean, it's good, but none of it sticks with me after I listen to it
I’m actually hoping people take the time to listen and learn that Violent Waves is actually a very good album. It’s better than the albums that came after it.