Album Rating: 2.5

"As someone who never seems to get worked up about production choices and tend to put it all down to songwriting, can you point out a few moments you suggest I should listen to specifically to notice said production choices?"



No worries. This is all subjective of course (and ranty), but you can tell that there is a general consensus among the commentors here that the production is a large part of the issue with this record (besides the obvious that it seems the Menzingers are running out songs to write about diners and smoking waitresses).



I won't patronize you with definitions of production techniques, so the following opinion assumes the reader has a base understanding of mixing/mastering and the process of recording an album:



Full disclosure, I am listening to this album with Sennheiser HD598's via FLAC audio files ripped from the CD.



- "Hope is a Dangerous Thing": This one comes out the gate with strummed guitar section with almost no color or definable sonic characteristics. For a better example of this technique, see the opener "Good Things" off of On the Impossible Past. Greg sings some schmaltz over the first verse until the band crashes in around the 0:38 mark and you hear the first real issue that is present through a majority of Some of It Was True -- The master is crushed and compressed to hell, even worse than whatever Will Yip did to Hello Exile. There is little in the way of dynamics or soundstage besides some hard panning L/R on the guitar tracks, but that is far from subtle or done well. Apparently any and all life, richness, and color has been sucked from the timbre of the instruments on these recordings.



- "There's No Place in This World for Me": This one starts off crashing and compressed to shit as well, but actually starts to trim off the dull fuzziness you hear on the periphery of the mix into a catchy and well-produced track as the first verse develops. The soundstage opens up a bit and you can actually hear some space and dynamics between Greg's vocals, the drum tracks, and the bass line, with the obvious problem being that the snare track is punched up about +5dB too high and overpowers Greg and the again hard-panned harmonics going on with the guitar on the right channel. This builds for a bit into a pre-chorus which should have led to a very cool moment when the entire band comes back in around the 1:10 mark, but again, we are punished by the production when we instead get CLIP FLAT FLAT CRUNCH CLIP FUZZ SNARE PUNCH SNARE PUNCH NOISE WALL BASS MUD.

Album Rating: 2.5

- "Nobody Stays": I will defend this track and "Try" as some of the better composed/arranged/written songs on the record, but they still suffer from the same production issues as the rest. This is obvious on the opening guitar line, where you can hear in the right channel a faint buzzing/hissing. This is likely the result of loose strings, a poorly set up/intonated guitar, or extra noise coming from the hardware in the bridge or headstock of the instrument, that is not something more normal like string squeaking or the mic picking up the actual sound of the pick striking the strings. For such a delicate opener (the intent to be delicate is made obvious by the also-cheap background synth/strings), you'd think they would pay attention to the detail in the quiet parts of the mix. It's either buzzing hardware, or they chose to split that guitar track into two signals and put a bad, quiet, fuzzy distortion over one of the signals, then layered them together A/B/Y style. Either way, questionable choices at best. As the track opens up starting with the cymbal taps around 0:24, the production and mix actually improve a bit, meaning I can discern the instruments from each other, and it doesn't sound like a flat, crushing-yet-weightless wall of sound. This devolves slightly as they hit the chorus, though, where the snare comes back in full force and WON'T SHUT THE FUCK UP until the 3:00 mark where they swap out the drum track for a 1997 cassette tape recording of a high school marching band and think we won't notice. Tom did great on this track, though. I've got no bones to pick with him.



The guitar tone is, as the original reviewer mentions, ass. The constant, cheap, affected warble/wow they inexplicably chose to accompany their $20 First Act amplifier distortion is beyond any explainable logic. The final master is flat, dull, and shallow, as if you're listening to the record through a very nice pair of speakers covered by a few bedsheets with your stereo gain set to +15dB but the master volume hovering around 40%. Offensive, yet weak at the same time. Paradoxical.



I can continue to rant and pick apart different aspects of this record and the production choices made by both the band and the producer/sound engineers, but I figure 3 examples is probably enough for now.



The biggest problem with this record is not the songwriting, however cliche and uninspired it's become. We love the Menzingers for their campiness and cheesy rose-tinted stories about parties from 10 years ago, or diners and punk rock music in basements or whatever. My gripe, as well as most others, I'd think, is that we are being fed these songs and stories through iPod headphones from 2003.

Album Rating: 2.5 | Sound Off

i think the songwriting is 100% the biggest problem with this. all of these songs except maybe running in the roar of the wind would be lowlights on their last fuckin 5 albums. zero hooks on this thing



not to say the production is good tho lmao

Album Rating: 2.5

I'll disagree with that. I don't think they hit the same highs as they did with "Strangers Forever" on Hello Exile or "After the Party" on the same titled album, but I absolutely enjoy singing along with "The older I get, the less I knowwwwww, and I knew nothin' then..." on "Some of it Was True".



Likewise, I think "Try", "Come On Heartache", and "There's No Place in This World for Me" are very solid Menzingers tracks despite the miserable production.



Overall, though, they are still rehashing the same songs as other commentors have already observed. They lose points for thinking they can put out the same record for a 5th time now.

Album Rating: 2.5 | Sound Off

the title track is pretty good true. one of the only songs that isnt reusing the same 4 note melodic pattern (which is also like basically just the triad and its most stable step up which makes it feel like nothing is happening lmao rip) that sinks most of this thing into homogeny. like the vibe of come on heartache is nice but its soooooo repetitive and its verses and choruses are practically melodically indistinguishable which sinks the whole thing



kind of hate try lol that and take it to heart are my least favorite songs theyve ever made. i can get behind theres no place in the world ish tho

Album Rating: 3.5

Why are there 4 comments on this page totaling up to 8,396 words

Album Rating: 2.5 | Sound Off

good on the band for being able to generate this much discourse out of their bland and mediocre writing ig

Album Rating: 2.5

This is called "conversation". Welcome.

Man this is very bad review

First of all, phrases like "most of it was mid" and "bruh moment" belong in my inbox and not in a record review.

Secondly it's an absolutely insane person thing to me to spend your longest paragraph complaining about the guitar tones of a PUNK band, which btw, sound half as bad as "Rested World" where the guitars all sounded like they were played through a tin can.

Album Rating: 2.5

"just wanted a Pitbull record and Trackhouse Racing to have a 5 rating. I don't care if this diminishes my credibility."

Album Rating: 2.5

The production approach doesn't do the songwriting any favors. There is a (seemingly) deliberate effort to leave much of vocal performances with a more "raw" and un-tuned delivery. This is apparent also with much of the background vocals and vocal doubles being significantly more dynamic and distinct than many may desire - I personally think their tunes best benefit from the "you'd notice if it wasn't there" style of vocal layering. I don't have THAT much to say as far as the production of the instrumentation goes - most of that stuff can get away with a little stylization, anyways.

Album Rating: 2.5

"Secondly it's an absolutely insane person thing to me to spend your longest paragraph complaining about the guitar tones of a PUNK band, which btw, sound half as bad as "Rested World" where the guitars all sounded like they were played through a tin can."



There is much more consideration to creating and recording an album than lyrics and groove. The technical process is just as important in creating a lasting, quality piece of art. This was done poorly, period, especially compared to previous albums. It reeks of laziness.



No one is seething here, but there are many examples of issues with the production of this record, so they are being pointed out. Feel free to spend your time elsewhere on the internet.

Album Rating: 2.0

wow this sounds kinda shit

Album Rating: 2.0

why do the vocals sound so bad. What happened?

Seeing them tomorrow for probably the 7th time, and still haven't heard this. Expectations are very low at this point for this band's new material, but you know there's always a couple decent sing alongs from this and the previous.

Album Rating: 2.5

not sure about this tour but I saw them in 2019 and they played a very healthy mix of new and old stuff. Even got some songs from their first album

Album Rating: 2.5

"This was done poorly, period, especially compared to previous albums. It reeks of laziness"



Mans, IDK. I feel like they've gotten a bit of criticism over the last two records for being "overproduced" - a little too perfect, sample replaced, vocals being overtuned (especially compared to what they usually reproduce live), too much polish, etc. I don't know if I wholeheartedly agree with those criticisms, but I know where they are coming from and I'm sure the group wanted to do a bit of a return to "raw"-ness, and it may have been a bit of an excessive pendulum swing.

Album Rating: 3.0

man this band has been pretty disappointing all around since on the impossible past and i thought after the party was fairly overrated. really feel like they just need to take 5 years off and learn how to right better tunes again.

Album Rating: 2.5

right

Rented World and After the Party were both good albums, but the last two feel really uninspired. Like they just released whatever with a couple singles on it to keep touring. Saw them on Friday and they were awesome, as always, but the new songs didn't do anything for anyone