Album Rating: 4.5

the songwriting on this is kind of incredible tho

Album Rating: 4.5

"idk how people tolerate the vocals on Whenever lmao they are not good"



tom diaz was the right match for what they were doing on the early releases

Album Rating: 5.0 | Sound Off

This was an obvious classic the moment it dropped and it remains so.

Album Rating: 3.0

obvious *sputcore shoe-in in that it's a pr-r-ofound emotional statement album with generous nostalgia, heaps of nerd references, unnecessary climaxes and too many riffs yh

Album Rating: 5.0 | Sound Off

can never have too many riffs ;-)

Album Rating: 3.0

trouble and invading the blahblah cracked redeye orb song say otherwise

Album Rating: 5.0 | Sound Off

johnny you should listen to the new Archive (that's a legitimate rec not trying to be sarcastic)

it's 1hr 43mins so just pause IRA's infinite loop and spin that for a moment

The bridge of "fewer afraid" still fuckin kills me, maybe my favorite song of the decade so far

Album Rating: 4.0

kinda with johnny on this one, a lot of this just hasn't stuck with me, still prefer Always Foreign

Album Rating: 5.0

Always foreign has a certain charm to it that I feel like a lot of people missed by not having repeated listens. This is still significantly stronger though

Album Rating: 4.5

Queen Sophie, Invading the world and Died in the prison are the best songs here.

Album Rating: 5.0

I have no idea why some people have absolutely no problems with an insanely bloated amount of riffs on something like thrash, prog metal, death metal, etc. and then suddenly it’s a big problem here.

Album Rating: 3.0

probably because a high riffs/minute count makes for a poor pairing with sentimentalist we-live-in-a-society crescendocore, but if there's anything concrete lurking behind that dense murky expanse you're more or less fingerpointing at, by all means link it and drag it

Album Rating: 5.0

But why is it a poor pairing if there’s clear purpose behind it? Because though I have to be in the mood for riff driven stuff and I do like it and love it even, but the reason I’m not exactly drawn to it sometimes is that it often comes across as look at how good at guitar I am. Here, idk for me at least, the atmosphere is fucking massive, emotional, and dare I say it I guess I prefer crescendocore over the genres I listed idk. Like what you like, but I just think too many riffs is too broad a statement. But whatever we like starting shit with each other it’s fine. It’s that abusive relationship good good 👌

Album Rating: 3.0

the more clear purpose behind an overbearing "artistic" guitarnoodle decision, the worse tbqh. more guitars do not a bigger atmosphere make (Inf Josh :'[) and more riffs are not the same as more emotions (Trouble >:[) and more complexx is not the same as more epic (Invading ::[) hot damn this album has enough could-have-been-great tracks to make for a cautionary tale against ever letting guitary guitarists join emo songscratching club

should add that the multitude of riffs wouldn't be half so offensive if they weren't bland as all hell. whoops

This album has a lot going on but it's not Necrophagist. There isn't a lot of, what I at least, would call wank

Album Rating: 5.0

Fuck, I wrote a whole thing and it asked me to log in. Not slight against anyone just talking about why this appeals to me.



TLDR verision: yeah Infinite Josh can get pretty wanky and I value Fewer Afraid a little more. Plus the bland, mundane way they’re lyrics are conveyed works with the chaos of the production and social commentary you say you dislike. It’s a nice juxtaposition, I think.

I could not think of a more incorrect way to describe Bello's lyrics than "we live in a society" unless you think all political commentary is inherently corny

yeah, when I hear "we live in a society" I usually think of something that is typically overly wordy and thinks its presenting ideas as if they are the one discovering them for the first time through arrogant galaxy brain logic.

If anything, TWIABP do the opposite and present the political in an almost childlike, but not childish, way. It keeps things pretty simple for the better and doesn't read to me like they are pretending to be pioneers of thought out of their depth

Yeah I mean Bello also really doesn't talk about stuff like technology or culture either. He just writes about class stuff in a pretty concrete way. Compare the lyrics to like, this last Arcade Fire album (which I would actually classify in the camp Johnny is talking about) and it's pretty much night and day