"while my sampler gently weeps".

when this first came out, i didn't give it much of a listen, because i'd already heard it. it was just kind of like there wasn't a new record.

i actually had that experience with skinny fists, as well. but, i think this record is the opposite of skinny fists, in that sense. see, i'd been listening to bootlegs of skinny fists material for months before the record was released, and the material is far more powerful live, so the record actually lost out to the bootlegs in terms of listening time. the songs lost something in the recording process, unfortunately. they were of course playing these songs near the end of their last touring cycle in the early 00s, so i was familiar with them from the bootlegs i'd heard, too. it just took them ten years or whatever it was to release the actual record, and by then my head was elsewhere - these were old songs. so, i just put it on ignore.

now, though, this record exists and has existed for a while, so it forms a place within my periodic godspeed binges, so i'm hearing it in that sequential context, rather than just ignoring it, because it's not really a new record. with this record, it's starting to sink in that it's kind of the opposite of skinny fists in terms of recording - these tracks sound better in recorded form, this time, as the detail is brought out in the studio, in ways that draw some continuity with yanqui. 

because i have these tracks mentally placed in the early 00s, though, that it was where i mentally place this record when i do these sequential binges - as their last record pre-breakup, not their first post-reformation. 

and, i think that, in the long-run, it may be where the periodic binges end, too.

jason mccann

Anyone complaining about this album is empirically wrong.  #endofdiscussion

deathtokoalas

this is currently under peer review.well, here we go.

deathtokoalas

first listen.

i'm.....apprehensive.

...

i'm actually interpreting the general feel of the record to be somewhat of a throwback to a component of their first record; one could suggest that this record lacks the variety of emotion that the first record did, but that might be missing the point - they clearly wanted to key in on a specific sound.

but, it sort of misfires.

on the first record, it came off as defiantly hopeful, that is, hopeful in the face of certain defeat; and, considering what the band was at that time, how could they have expected anything besides failure? this is a specific kind of optimism, in that it is understood by all to be futile. what it is is delusion and for that reason was so effective as escape - it was absurd to be hopeful, and that's why it was fun, for a few minutes. the expanded melodic percussion, the xylophones, really aided in this general feeling.

here, it is coming off as an order. BE HOPEFUL, DAMMIT. NOW. HOPE. NOW. 

and, here's the thing: that might work better for a lot of people. it really might.

but, i liked the hope better without the coercion.

i'll probably still go seem them play next month.