Album Rating: 5.0

seeeeeeeeeeraphim

Album Rating: 4.5

Cities also has one of the best vocal performances in their discography IMO

That quiet first verse is so melancholy & beautiful

Album Rating: 5.0 | Sound Off

This might get a five one day. I just don't think I've ever 5'd an EP.

Album Rating: 5.0

and the nights my heart was tired, you sang your saccharine song

but when your mouth was quiet, was the sweetest sound of all

Album Rating: 4.5

Sometimes I think they could have created a different tracklist for Untitled LP that included a few off this and it would have elevated it even more. Just having fun thinking about it, I might have done:



9/27

Julia

Hydra

Existential Dread

Winter

Flee, Thou Matadors

August 6th

2459 Miles

Wendy / Betsy

Cities of the Plain

Michael Row Your Boat

Kristy and the Sparkling Teeth



That said, Dormouse, Tortoises, New Wine, and Break on Through are all great and probably don't fit anywhere else well

Album Rating: 5.0

I think Dormouse fits in waaaaaay better than Existential Dread there. Cities into Michael is a DREAM though, good call.



Honestly Existential Dread and Break on Through are the weakest of the two works (the "are we never gonna be the same?" part in existential is killer tho), but they're hardly supposed to be in your face lol. And "Someday I'll find me" is such an amazing final line for this band.

Album Rating: 5.0 | Sound Off

"from what the rest of us could tell, dad tried his best and finally fell, apart at just my age" is absolutely gutting too. it's probably the weakest song here and still like a 4.6/5, I would've just either trimmed the last minute or changed up the instrumentation in it



I had a combined tracklist in my car at some point which fuckin smacked, wonder if I can find that

Album Rating: 4.5

Ooh track re-organizing, now we're speaking my language. I appreciate YourDarkAffected's sentiment about combining the two, although I like them as separate entities. If I wanted to combine them without omitting a single song (because let's face it, they're all worthy), it would look like this:

1. "Julia (or, ‘Holy to the LORD’ on the Bells of Horses)" - this works much better as an opener in my opinion. The perfect quintessential mwY song.

2. "9:27a.m., 7/29" - The way the muted screams at the end of Julia launch into the hysteria of this one is so addicting and frankly I'm surprised the band didn't order them as such.

3. "Another Head for Hydra" - This keeps the momentum going full swing and the concluding guitars of 9:27a.m.,7/29 even sound similar to the screeching ones that commence Hydra. Absolute perfect ordering.

4. "August 6th" - This has just the right mid-tempo to ease the album into some of the EPs softer hues. Still upbeat enough to not sound out-of-place on the heels of Another Head for Hydra.

5. "[dormouse sighs]" - An absolutely unskippable song that, while slow paced, still maintains the album's urgent predisposition. Also those backing vocals and the closing incantation is 10/10 stuff.

6. "Winter Solstice" (LP version) - Can't deny the way the guitar drop at the end of [dormouse sighs] feeds right into the opening seconds here. Chose the LP version over the EP one because its tempo fits in better with the rest of the album.

7. "2,459 Miles" - Functions as the 'Dorothy' to Wendy & Besty's 'Red Cow'. A great interlude.

8. "Wendy & Betsy" - The way this ramps up to the ending shouts and screams might be the most chilling moment on the album.

9. "New Wine, New Skins" - I like the way this comes gliding in right after the upheaval of Wendy & Betsy. Frame-worthy lyrics make this a perfect post-frenzy moment of clarity.

Album Rating: 4.5

10. "Bethlehem, WV" - This is a tough fit based on the slow pace, but it's so good it needs to be forcibly inserted into the tracklist. I like it here as a bridge between the ramped up ending chorus of NW, NS and the ensuing number.

11. "Flee, Thou Matadors!" - The addicting chorus always struck me as a late-album gem rather than an early-mid album building block, and it works nicely here in that role.

12. "Dirty Air" - The middling tempo but catchy chorus make this fit in nicely as a 'Flee' companion/afterthought.

13. "Tortoises All the Way Down" - Not my favorite LP track but it fits in nicely here as more of an elaborate track compared to the saccharine sing-alongs that preceded it. The way the vocals and guitars erupt at the end is perfect.

14. "Cities of the Plain" - Are you ready for the drone/ambient section of this album? I used a program to combine Cities of the Plain, Existential Dread Six Hours Time, and Michael Row Your Boat ashore into one behemoth track and it was glorious, I'll have to dig it up in my old mp3's. Anyway, this commences the spacey, ambient section.

15. "Existential Dread, Six Hours' Time" - The perfect bridge between Cities and the mayhem to ensue below.

16. "Michael, Row Your Boat Ashore" - The best song mwY have ever written plunges in like a jackknife with a wall of intense drumming, disorienting guitars, and screaming. The disorienting surge of noise is the perfect capper on this ambient holy trifecta.

17. "Break on Through (to the Other Side) [pt. Two]" - The perfect outro if it weren't for the fact that it starts to ramp up with those electronic beats at the end as if to imply that it's headed somewhere.

18. "Kristy W/ The Sparkling Teeth" - This takes the electronic beats that close out Break on Through and provides the perfect dose of ironic contrast; an almost country-americana acoustic ballad. That shimmering guitar line is the ultimate way to close [Untitled] out on a soft, peaceful note.

Album Rating: 5.0 | Sound Off

can't find what I used to bump in the Honda Civic but trying to recreate it off the top of my head:



1. 2,459 Miles

2. Wendy & Betsy

3. Julia (seriously if you don't have time for it all just try these three as an opener, smacks)

4. 9:27am

5. August 6th

6. Bethlehem VW

7. Flee Thou Matadors

8. Cities of the Plain

9. [dormouse sighs]

10. New Wine New Skins

11. Michael

12. Break on Through

Album Rating: 5.0 | Sound Off

Finally giving this the 5 it deserves. Maybe the best EP of all time.

Album Rating: 5.0

Yeah I need to as well tbh lol.



seraphiiiiiiiiiiiiiiim

Album Rating: 5.0 | Sound Off

This thing is just perfectly composed, track list is perfect. Even when they slow it down with Existential Dread, the lead-in to August 6th is just fantastic.

Album Rating: 5.0

August 6th itself makes this a 5

Album Rating: 4.5

[scenes from old air raid] on screens in blue dusk

Perfumed neighborhoods/graveyards the breath feels like

Flies in my lungs, voice like ambulance

Sirens whose light floods the ground



One of my favorite mwy passages. Unbelievably good.

Album Rating: 5.0

I always loved: “along the short path round the lily pad pond, with off-white deer skin wedding dress on”

Album Rating: 5.0 | Sound Off

The one that cut to the bone for me?



Does it feel wrong to say a thought "metastasized"?

Album Rating: 5.0

Ugh, yes : (



I legit get goosebumps/tear up during that whole song

Album Rating: 5.0

I stared down a huge insect, bright red glowing eyes

Album Rating: 5.0 | Sound Off

soon our ransomed souls will leave this age behind



for streets of solid gold...



i hear it all the time