First listen: Underwhelming.
Second listen: Magical.

Magical is honestly the one word I think that could best describe this album
just wow

This album is outstanding. A lot more atmosphere than No place imo. Songwriting isn't quite as catchy but still great

wow yeah i was a bit underwhelmed at first but this grew on me quick. fantastic release

I'm liking on first listen. Hope it grows on me too

yay

nice

two deliverances is 11/10

only listened 3 times but i'm pretty positive it's better than home so aoty pretty much

two deliverances is 11/10 [2]

Really enjoying this

pretty good so far

good stuff so far

Great album. Not Home-tier for me, but that clearly wasn't their intent. Probably gonna grow with more listens.

Sick, will be spinning this when I get off work.

o shiet

Cool, will check out later.

Sweeee

Wait, since when are they a trio?

Also, sick.

Nice!

@pajolero second guitarist left after the recording of this album

Is there a single song on this album that's as good or as hard as Life In Drag?

@Hyped I see, bummer.

@Pajolero yeah he doesn't like touring and they tour relentlessly, or at least they did for Home Like Noplace, so it was just a matter of time

Wow, this is excellent.

@DreamAgain If your metric for how "good" a song is is how heavy or dissonant it is, then this whole album is going to disappoint you.

Life in Drag was prob one of my least fav on their last album tbh, sounds exactly like a rip off La Dispute song.

In this Light is brilliant.

every song is better than Life on Drag

damn. this album is amazing. I didn't like the purposeful skips they put in at first but they're growing on me. already aoty for me (so far).

anyone else just gonna chuck Goodness Pt. 1 onto this as a bonus track

Nah I prefer part 2

yeah but why not have both? *sounds of rejoicing*

Yeah, that's kind of weird. I bought the album digitally, and only part 2 made the cut...

Is there a physical release with part 1 on it?

Pretty sure part 1 will be on a tour exclusive 7-inch.
http://thehotelier.bandcamp.com/album/goodness-pt-i

life in drag to the end of the album is by far the best part of Home. This new album disappoints me so hard. Where is the sudden moments of aggression? Where is the post-rock influenced riffs?

^ if you listened to Sun or End of Reel you would hear both of those things in their best forms

Their first album was fucking fantastic. Doubt they will be able to top it but I'm really liking the first couple tracks so far.

"life in drag to the end of the album is by far the best part of Home."

Nah, Introduction and Wildflowers were two of the best songs on the album. Although Dendron is probably my favorite.

Suuuuuuuuuunnnn...

@dix Home isn't their first album just fyi

Also I used to love Wildflowers but it really grow off me in a major way, wonder if that happened to anyone else. Agreed Introduction is da best

Introduction is still the best song they've ever written

"Introduction is still the best song they've ever written."

Or Dendron. It's the one argument in my head that may never be settled.

Dendron.

collapsing walls around me
I need some brick and mortar

this album is starting to compete with Home, which was my pick for album of the decade
this is unreal

It doesn't quite have the highlights --although Soft Animal sure comes damn close-- and it's not quite as striking. I think Home will easily remain their classic in the eyes of the larger music community, but this album is far more consistent, and perhaps even better crafted.

yeah Home is like the catchiest album ever as far as anthemic songwriting goes, but this album is much more ambitious and accomplished imo
and the lyrics oh my god

gotta check

Maybe it's just because Home came at the right time in my life, but I've never heard a more accomplished album when it came to exploring and relating suffering and anguish. The role empathy plays in Holden's songwriting may be unparalleled, especially in Home.

This is a far--fuck it--softer animal, and it's accomplished in different ways. The songwriting here is stronger overall, the emotion is still there, just far more subtle and light. I don't know if boiling Home down to "anthemic songwriting" quite does it justice, but I do agree, this is at the very least Home's equal, and perhaps the better album musically.

Home made The Hotelier my favorite band and probably genuinely saved my life for a brief period last year, so I absolutely agree, it's stunningly relatable and cathartic and much more than catchy, anthemic songs
I just feel like this album is everything the genre is trying to do right now, while still retaining all of the standout qualities of Home. Foxing and Pianos Become The Teeth also slowed and softened their music way down and lost a little (and in regards to Foxing, a lot imo) of what made them special in the first place. This album is soft and absolutely beautiful without sacrificing the catharsis that defines this band and I think that is what makes it so special and possibly better than Home.

so tl;dr but good discussion

"This album is soft and absolutely beautiful without sacrificing the catharsis that defines this band and I think that is what makes it so special and possibly better than Home."

Well said.

The last half of this blows the first half out of the water tbh.

ok yeah this album is fantastic. every song is great even Piano Player grew on me a lot. I honestly think their weakest song is You in this Light but it's just average. never thought this album would compete with Home but man I think I'm gonna have to bump it up to a 4.5

Piano Player is prob weakest for me, and then there is the filler tracks which could have been cut.

If there is any filler here (that's not a winceworthy spoken word piece), I don't know if any of it is nearly as glaring as Housebroken.

YES THANK YOU, Housebroken does not fit on Home at all and it is glaring (tho it is a great song with that big ass guitar hook)

Idk the spoken word tracks just don't really do anything. The poetry is ok and all but it doesn't add too much to the overall album. Best example of filler tracks done right are the ones in Midnight Organ Fight, which feature actually some of the best instrumentation on the album (Pink Bookmark) while remaining as short intro pieces for the main courses.

I really enjoy the track in between Piano Player and Two Deliverances tbh but yeah the spoken word didnt do anything for me either.

idk why people are talking about spoken word tracks like there's more than one?

also the two guitar interludes are pretty beaut

thank you i am also confused about that lol, the other interludes are singing and i agree that they're very pretty, i enjoy them

theres only one that's what I meant. not a big fan of Fear of Good but the other two are good

aw man, the lyrics to Fear Of Good are chill-inducing

idk the melody kinda bored me and I end up just kinda ignoring it. i bet the lyrics are great tho

it's definitely slight compared to the rest of the album but yeah the lyrics are phenomenal

"Nah, Introduction and Wildflowers were two of the best songs on the album"

In Framing. In Framing. In Framing.

I enjoy the spoken word track only because I think silence is used really well at the beginning of this album, and does a fairly competent job of setting a kind of reverent vibe and giving the album a sense of space. It's largely successful overall.The fact that this an emo-punk album where it takes three minutes for guitars to appear is really cool.

I just wish he would have read a better poem.