#21

Not as good as The Cribs

2 Likes
#22

First heard them when Float On came out. Absolutely loved it, and loved Good News too. Soundtracked the summer between first and second years at uni. Then went backwards and felt like I’d discovered my new favourite band. Never really understood why people felt they dropped off a cliff with Good News - obviously quite different to the stuff that came before, but it’s still great. Disappointing that they’ve only released two albums since because I’ve enjoyed both of them. Neither are up there with their best, but there’s plenty to love.

4 from me.

2 Likes
#23

Abstain/5. I know one song by them called do the cockroach? That’s good. Apart from that, dunno.

#24

Love them up until Good News (which is a brilliant album) but they lost my interest after that. Dashboard is still a great song though.

I’ll give them a 4/5. So many good songs in their canon.

My favourite song by them I think. An absolute monster.

6 Likes
#25

A brilliant band who have classic albums that have slowed their output which means new albums are heavily scrutinised and… Leave me feeling warm but not as good as their earlier stuff.

1 Like
#26
4 Likes
#27

Can only speak for myself but first listened to them just before we were dead… Came out. Listened to that and good news and just marked them down as a slightly overrated, pretty average indie rock band until a pal put me on to the older albums and I loved them.

Sure there are some older fans performatively distancing themselves from the newer stuff, but working backwards I noticed the same gap in quality

3 Likes
#28

They’re alright 3/5

#29

Yeah, there just seem to be so many fewer ideas on all the stuff on Good News and after. They’ve lost that weird meandering edge that made them so good to begin with.

3 Likes
#30

Moon & Antarctica was a massive album for me as a 14 year old indie, had never heard anything like it at the time. think that and Lonesome Crowded West both stand up really well.

Good News has some bangers but loses its cohesiveness with the wannabe tom waits stuff.
Dashboard and Parting of the Sensory are both great off of Ship but other than that it’s pretty poor iirc? not really kept up with them after that but reckon you could still make a 10/10 compilation from their stuff from Good News onwards

2 Likes
#31

good word for it, weird. Newer albums aren’t weird enough, which is possibly tied to them being on the radio etc

#32

A nailed on 5/5 for me. Bit of a nostalgia band now but Lonesome Crowded West still sounds sad and slightly unhinged which perfectly reflects how I felt as a Kerouac reading longhair in my late teens. Their show at the Royal Albert Hall in about 2006ish at the end of the We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank tour is one of my favourites ever. They also inspired my first ever tattoo (which has aged like milk).

image
image756×1008 260 KB

Should probably get it lasered or covered up at some point because I’m quite worried that Isaac Brock might have some shitty skeletons in his closet.

4 Likes
#33

oh yeah Long Drive’s good too

#34

I also broke my little toe dancing around my bedroom to Dashboard after it came out, smashed it in to the leg of my bed at the wrong angle and just snapped it like a twig.

2 Likes
#35

Voted 5 on strength of The Moon and Antarctica and Lonesome Crowded West which are both perfect, and some great live shows. Everything before and after those may as well not exist, but doesn’t tarnish them much for me since they were never big enough in the UK for it to be difficult to pretend the dross simply didn’t exist.

#36

I’m in the theoretically my thing but never connected with it at all camp. Either 2 or abstain from me.

#37

A very solid 4. Completely wore out my Moon and Antarctica CD in highschool.

#38

4 for me

Only got into them when Good News came out but loved that so much I went back and was absolutely blown away by Moon & Antartica. Now I am probably more impressed with The Lonesome Crowded West though.

Reckon they get a lot of flack for Good News just cause that was peak elitist ‘I liked them before they were cool’/discovering things on the internet period. Its a super solid album with more succinct songs. Although I guess it is kinda strange just how much they changed and abandoned part of what made them so special.

The less said about what came after that the better, We Were Dead has some tunes but Strangers to Ourselves is so flat.

1 Like
#39

4/5. Gone off the boil a bit, but never released anything terrible + have some solid 5/5 albums in Moon & Antarctica and Lonesome Crowded West.

Doin’ the Cockroach was my intro to them, and has been one of my favourite songs ever since.

2 Likes
#40

Any band that releases three albums as amazing as their first three, while also effortlessly releasing a b-sides compilation that is, sometimes I feel, better than all three of them deserves a 5

There’s some gold in the later stuff to ofc but that early period is just wow

1 Like