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User
Soundoffs 8
Album Ratings 827
Objectivity 75%
Last Active 08-19-21 5:03 am
Joined 02-26-11
Review Comments 6,626
| Aubergine ranks his favorite band (La Dispute)
My first list in like 7 years or something lol. This is not including the Here, Hear EPs or anything else that is too different from their main body of work for me to really compare. I went back and listened to a bunch of old songs so that my ranking is not just based purely on nostalgia although it’s impossible to totally remove that element from my view of the music. For what it’s worth I first heard them in 2010 so I started with their debut full-length, then went backwards until Wildlife and stuff came out. I might edit the descriptions a little bit to fix grammar/spelling or add stuff if I think of something I forgot to say. | | 1 |  | La Dispute
Somewhere at the Bottom of the River Between Vega and Altair
5/5 My favorite album of all time. Some people might say it’s melodramatic and whiny and whatnot and they aren’t necessarily wrong, but this album got me through my first real heartbreak and one of the hardest periods of my life when I was really struggling with loneliness and mental illness. It may sound cheesy but listening to this album made me feel like I wasn’t alone in my struggle. I think this album has the perfect balance of self-pitying angst and the realization that your problems won’t consume you. It’s cathartic but doesn’t push you to wallow in your sorrow forever. It’s responsible in its angst, always looking at a brighter future. Musically it is creative and complex and aggressive but very accessible and catchy, both heavy and beautiful. The songwriting is unbelievable consider the age of band. The way StKttR ebbs and flows, the polyrhythm in Bury Your Flames clean section... My only complaint would be a few too many blues rock riffs, but they are used in a tasteful way. | | 2 |  | La Dispute
Wildlife
4.9/5 This album is great and the usual fan favorite probably. It has a couple flaws for me. One is that instrumentally it’s a bit less varied than Somewhere. The other is that it sometimes feels like it’s depressing just for the sake of it. Somewhere has a more poetic sensibility and hopefull outlook that justified the angst to me. Sometimes I just feel a little weird jamming songs about kids dying of cancer as an adult, you know? That said the lyrics are still written in a tasteful way. I just find it harder personally to relate to many of these stories, especially when the album first came out. At 29 some of the songs have become more relateable to me but others sometimes seem a little pessimistic in a maybe not so constructive way for me personally. That said the album is still a masterpiece. | | 3 |  | La Dispute
Untitled
4.8 Pretty much just b-sides from Somewhere. Great lyrics and some more abrasive instrumentals. Awesome. | | 4 |  | Touche Amore/La Dispute
Searching for a Pulse/The Worth of the World
4.8 Tied with Untitled. This is two of my favorite bands firing on all cylinders. If this was a full length album it would probably be #2. This has some surprisingly aggressive vocals from Jordan which is always welcome to me. A little more streamlined but still great songwriting, lyrics and energy. | | 5 |  | La Dispute
Panorama
4/5 Great album with a few big flaws for me. The vocals are mixed way too low for one. Second, while everything sounds great during the softer sections, and the clean guitars and bass sound fantastic, I’m not really a fan of the distorted guitar tone which just sounds kind of weak and brittle to me. The very subdued spoken word passages get a little boring on repeat listens. That said I think this album brings back some of the raw emotion that was lost on most of RotH which I was not expecting as I thought that album was a sign that this band was going the way of Pianos Become the Teeth. I’m very happy I was wrong. While I miss the more aggressive instrumental of their debut, this hybrid of post-hardcore and post-rock is something I can get behind. The lyrics are well written, though sometimes it’s hard to tell what the lyrics are actually about. | | 6 |  | La Dispute
Rooms of the House
3.5/5 I would probably love this album if it was from a random band I’d never heard of, but it was really disappointing as a La Dispute album in my opinion. It feels like Diet Wildlife to me, with a similar but less inspired lyrical concept and instrumentals that veered even further into alt-rock territory. The whole 50s coffee aesthetic is a little bit cringey. Some of the lyrics don’t make sense, like in the second song when he’s talking about his cell phone. Outside of some standouts like Stay Happy There, Jordan seemed less passionate and emotive, and the half-assed attempt at clean singing at the beginning of Mayor of Splitsville are just embarrassingly bad. Regardless of all of this I think this is a solid album, just not a great La Dispute album. | | 7 |  | La Dispute
Vancouver
3.5 Tied with RotH. Obviously they were very young and the production is not great, but the songs are all bangers and the lyrics are really creative. One flaw would be the sometimes shrill and whiny vocals (I never thought Somewhere was too whiny but this does take it to a slightly cheesy level) but to be fair Jordan was like 17 or 18 and clearly still going through puberty so it’s not really his fault that his voice was so squeaky. While sometimes rough around the edges, this album has a youthful energy that I feel is missing in the band’s most recent releases. | |
ConcubinaryCode
03.21.19 | That split is fucking amazing. | auberginedreams
03.21.19 | Yep, I’d love to see them do a part 2. I think the bands are close friends. | ConcubinaryCode
03.21.19 | Wouldn't be surprised if everyone in the new wave scene was. | DungeonBoy
03.22.19 | "Some people might say it’s melodramatic"
*All
Also yeah, the TA/LD split is fantastic |
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