Album Rating: 4.0

Alligator is their guitar-forward post-punk influenced shouty-climax driven record, definitely go with that one then.

haha now you've got me hoping for somethin on the level of interpol's debut, that should be a good stepping on point

Album Rating: 4.0

They used to share a rehearsal space, you might be surprised at the level of cross-pollination. Compare the drums to Mistaken for Strangers to those of Take You On A Cruise.

oh that's sick as hell, yeah post-punk i've learned to love a lot thru my goth dives, so i should probably vibe that

Haven’t really been able to get into this album aside from a couple songs. Need to give it more listens though. Trouble Will Find Me and High Violet are great but outside of that I find all of their albums to be just ok outside of a few tracks.

Edit: have yet to hear Alligator or Boxer albums though.

Album Rating: 4.0

"have yet to hear Alligator or Boxer albums though."



bro

Album Rating: 5.0 | Sound Off

Insane

Album Rating: 4.0

I can remember the exact day this came out. It was a really turbulent time in my life and this hit me like a ton of bricks. Seeing them tour it was pretty magical too. To this day I still don’t think it had any right to be as good as it was after such a sizeable hiatus, drastic aesthetic change and the band showing signs of declension into self parody on their last album (Heavenfaced I’m looking at you).



Anyway tragic they’ve seemingly lost both ability and appetite to do an album like this again.

"have yet to hear Alligator or Boxer albums though."
Literally what are you waiting for

Album Rating: 4.5

i've got a confession to make



i unashamedly like turtleneck

Album Rating: 4.0

Should have been their last album

Album Rating: 4.0

if this was an ep of just the opener and the last 5 songs thisd be my favorite national tbh. alas itll have to settle on 4th or 5th depending on the day

^'Day I Die' and 'System Only Dreams' are too good to forfeit but tbh I wouldn't be terribly upset if the three track run of Born to Beg → Turtleneck → Empire Line were omitted.

Album Rating: 4.0

Agreed that second half > first half



Empire Line is cool, I like that one

Empire Line is alright, would Guilty Party out of the last five for that (and then yep, opener/Day I Die/System and that endrun all day)

Album Rating: 4.5

The first four songs, Guilty Party and the closer would be my edit if I wanted to reduce the runtime for whatever reason.

Album Rating: 4.0

“Should have been their last album”



they still make great songs they just don’t make great albums. if they tighten things up they can drop another one on par with this

Album Rating: 4.0

system is very good too, but day i die has always bounced off me. that + walk it back back to back has habitually been a lull point for me

day i die is landfill, but like rare good welcome landfill
hitting that upbeat slot after the opener rly serves it well

Album Rating: 4.0

system actually has one of the best guitar solos ever it’s crazy