songs feel a little forgettable but they’re all quality, good songs
EDIT1: and I don’t super click with the overall theme, it’s a little mopey for me
RELISTEN1: I like This Room Is White and MAYBE a lot. A lot a lot, both are great, solid, good albums. Many songs I really like a lot, and as works, as albums they feel really good. As I went into this relisten my memory I was comparing against was that I like them, but that they would get kinda whiny and complainy and angsty and I didn’t care for that. This Room Is White and MAYBE aren’t like that, they’re pretty unqualified goods. My overwhelming feeling is that they’re way better than I remember, I don’t feel the angst painfully like I have in the past. I like the songs, I like their voices, I like the works as works.
After MAYBE it gets not quite as good. sucks to see you doing better isn’t as good as TRIW or MAYBE, but it’s still solid and a lot better than I remember. Where it really falls off for me is after that (Last Birthday, Lost in Translation). I think what I would say is that those, their more recent things, are “spikier” than their earlier stuff. I don’t know if that’s a good word for it, that’s how it feels to me. Sharper, less atmospheric. Not more aggressive, but more demanding of attention. More directly poppish, more… more modern Post-Maloneish. I don’t love it. It might grow on me, the early stuff definitely did. But I don’t love the newest stuff, not right now.
I think for now I’m going to bump Valley up to an A-, they at least deserve that, but I’m holding off on any more than that until they make something new that is more on the level of TRIW and MAYBE, or maybe if Lost In Translation grows on me
tunafruitsandwitch 