Album Rating: 4.5

Nice rating, Hawks!

Album Rating: 4.5

Smidley opening for Lucy Dacus is very cool but wow imagine if that were Foxing. show would make less sense, sure

but it would be the sickest thing

Album Rating: 3.5

Makes sense, I think Lucy Dacus' guitarist is the same as Smidley's

Album Rating: 5.0

Oh damn really!?? That’s very cool

Album Rating: 5.0

First time I jammed this since last year prob, Gratitude is still the most breathtaking song I’ve ever heard. Unreal track

Album Rating: 4.5

I haven't jammed this in a little while either. Really should again. Sad they're disbanding but they ended on a high note for sure

Album Rating: 3.5

They’ll be back

Album Rating: 5.0

I hope to god you’re right

Album Rating: 4.5

Id be surprised if they dont reunite at some point tbh

Album Rating: 5.0

It’s mentioned in Sowing’s amazing review, but



“I've been harboring resentment

meant for lack of eventfulness in divine sense.

I wanna be Saul to Paul in Damascus,

awakened above the masses.

The last gasp of god before the rapture,

chariotted high above a glass earth,

but instead

I'm tiptoeing the fractures,

obsessed with what if it shatters,

Or doesn’t matter…

What does it matter?

What doesn’t matter?”



This is the verse that’s stuck with me years later. It’s just jaw dropping lyricism, actual poetry. I sobbed like a fucking bitch at their second to last show when they busted this one out. There’s plenty of confrontational, in your face tracks but this one stays in your mind and claws its way into your soul. Truly the sleeper hit of this album and one of the best songs in their catalogue. I love that really took the lukewarm reception of Dealer and then made a song in that style almost a decade later and it’s goddamned flawless. Words honestly fail to describe how this song actually makes me feel.

Album Rating: 4.5

big grower for me, lyrically astounding



but...i am not hearing the dealer comparison in the slightest

Album Rating: 5.0

That is also my favorite lyrical excerpt, and why I chose it to close out the review. I do think there's a Dealer comparison to be made, but it's like a more fleshed out version of that style. Almost two years later, I think this still remains my top album of the 2020s decade.

Album Rating: 3.0

I'm very sad I can't seem to understand why this album is so great. I love Albatross/Dealer, and like DDTM.

With that said I think Gratitude is their absolute best song by a mile.

Album Rating: 5.0

For me it's the sheer passion/aggression and phenomenal lyrics. Never been obliterated quite like the first time I heard Secret History lmao

Album Rating: 5.0

[2]

Lyrically it’s the most relatable album I’ve ever heard. I’ve been through severe heartache, Ive been an alcoholic and a drug addict, I’ve been depressed and even suicidal, and there’s plenty of albums that center around those feelings, but for me this album has perfectly captured the frustration of being your average joe in the last decade. The dejection, economic frustrations… the kind of purgatory that is our modern existence. No other album gets it as well as this one does.



I’ll also admit that expectations played a big role for me with this one. Ever since Nearer My God, this is the record I always wanted them to make… I guess essentially an even more desperate and angry version of what that album gave us. Draw Down the Moon is the pop version of that record. This is the pissed off version of it. I think the closest thing to a flaw this record has is that the sequencing near the end is a little janky. I mean, 3 of the last 4 songs here are my least favorites on the entire album. Cry Baby absolutely has to be the closer but I think that maybe Dead Cat and Dead Internet could’ve landed a little bit earlier that way it wouldn’t have made for such a “weak” ending.



I say “weak” but I still love all of those songs, they’re just pretty easily my least favorites. It’s quite literally my favorite album of all time.



I truly don’t think this will ever be topped for me… but I don’t doubt these guys if they ever come back, I thought the same thing about Nearer My God and then this record came and blew it out of the fucking water.

Album Rating: 5.0

And all I ever really wanted it to feel like

has departed from my life

and the memory of desire

feels foreign in my mind…



Through the good and bad times

slipping through my eyes,

collected on my thigh

I blend the lows and the highs

until they all become one lie







Thank you, you're too kind

Album Rating: 3.5

"I thought the same thing about Nearer My God and then this record came and blew it out of the fucking water."



It is a shame this one never fully clicked for me. Maybe I shall give it some more spins. Nearer My God is an all timer.

Album Rating: 4.5

depends on the given day for me which I prefer. listened to this right before their last show while walking aimlessly around St. Louis and I don't think it ever sounded better

Album Rating: 5.0

give me snapping of the brain

Album Rating: 5.0

@Grey

could’ve hung with us dude, I knew like 20 people at that last show lol