Album was decent. I guess you could say I was…
I’m looking forward to giving a critical headphone listen because I can tell they put a lot of work into nuance and texture.
The album doesn’t have the contour that many of their albums have. Most of the songs feel from the same sonic universe, compare that to something like whistle kids > half delayed > maybe someday > remind me or all of DBS. I like their musical ADHD and this album feels flat compared to that.
Look forward to checking this out, but will likely be after the weekend. I haven’t listened to a single note of any of the tracks they released will be totally fresh on all tracks.
If you’re a fan of proggy Umphrey’s, there’s not much for you here but…hang around until the last two songs. Seriously. Those were a nice surprise.
This is a giant mixed bag that I mostly lean negative on. Bayliss’ lyrics are bad and his tuneless vocal melodies are even worse. There are lots of songs here where someone will come up with a good foundation for a song and Bayliss just fails to write any memorable support for it (or writes lyrics about having the hiccups ffs). Pure Saturation is the worst offender. Great Jake riff, ends up going nowhere. For shame.
There are a few good ones though. Still love So Much and New Wings. Escape Goat has nice potential as others have mentioned. I think one strength about that is that’s a song that they can jam in the middle and the ending will actually feel like a cathartic release when they come back to it. And the last two songs…suddenly the angular riffs and creative arrangements show up. And the melody of Work Sauce stays in your head after the album ends too. They’re good. The “pain is a motherfucker” song is OK too.
Still as confused about the identity of this band as ever, but at least there’s a few gems to be had here. I just hope they don’t run any of these songs into the ground.
We got band members and the official account responding to people saying it sucks! A sign that UM has their priorities in order!
Pure saturation is pretty tight
Pretty much sums up my thoughts on the record.
Escape Goat is fine.
How About Now? has to be up there for most boring UM song ever. God Bayliss is annoying sometimes. Why doesn’t he save this bullshit for a solo album or something.
I like the album, but it needs a bit more punch, and I am kinda surprised that Jake only sings one song. When It’s Not Your Fault started I thought, here we go, another Jake song. #Fakeout’d
I think the Fenced In > New Wings > So Much run is pretty tight.
Mixed bag for sure. I can’t get over how much of a let down How about Now is after Escape Goat, which is easily the best song UM has released in a while.
Never thought about that but holy shit with that probably make a difference in UM tunes
Its just terrible timing for an album of this substance. UM has never needed a revival of their true roots more than now given their fall from grace, and even though this is a fine studio album that took a lot of hard work and dedication from elite musicians, its going to keep digging their grave even more if its forced on people show by show.
Feels like they tried to get more mainstream to gain new fans, not sure how well that’s gonna work out.
That said, their sets have gotten super stale lately, they need some (good) new jam vehicles and material to spice things up. I feel like the INU/IY releases in 2018 spurred them to 2 of their best years so hopefully this does the same.
There are a handful of absolute throwaways here, but I can see Small Strides, Hiccup, Escape Goat, Work Sauce and Ordinary Times being really good additions to the live catalog.
Like when they put YAYA after Remind Me on the last album.
After a full listen…
I’m kinda dreading listening. Been so down on UM the last few years, and these descriptions aren’t making me excited
If you liked the last album, then Im sure youd like this one.
Idk, it’s you is super proggy and this isn’t
Not sure I agree with this. Both raging Bull and it’s not you / it’s us are very different
Yeah thats true. I forget how night and day the songs are on each of the two albums.
INU is all over the place, but IY has a pretty consistent prog theme and feels kinda classic UM in terms of overall genre imo
