I’ve tagged this in my internal records as “distinct_phases,” by which I mean that the band has, well, distinct phases. It’s consistent, but only within its distinct phases. I think it’s pretty good in its good phase, but I got tired of its bad phase. Y’know? It’s a little tricky to make a clear ranking, or to say anything about the band as a whole, because it feels like there were two different bands.
I care nothing for the band of LAUNDRY DAY’s first three albums. The band of LAUNDRY DAY’s second three albums, I think is pretty decent. This is something that comes up occasionally, and it’s always a little tricky to handle. Sometimes I kinda take the aggregate; sometimes I treat it more like the most recent released stuff; sometimes I treat it like the parts I like most with a penalty; sometimes I treat it like the parts I like least with some leniency. I just go by vibe, mostly. In this case, their earliest stuff feels rough enough around the edges that I think I’m fine to mostly call it something that fits the later stuff, the stuff I liked more. I’m treating it more like their first phase was B-sides, if that makes sense.
I didn’t like their first three albums. They’re meh, and aggressively so, though I don’t know that I could quite place why. In a lot of ways I feel like I’m being too harsh. It feels like these albums should’ve been fine for me, like I should’ve liked them well enough, but I just didn’t. Something feels off. They aren’t engaging and I think they aren’t good. Lots of the individual pieces are good, or at least good enough, but when I actually listen to them the songs are not good.
I think it’s possible these first three albums, particularly the third one, Homesick, might be better than I’m giving it credit for. I’m not sure. Pretty immediately, by the end of my first day of listening even, I realized that I’d become really kinda irked by them for no real reason. I just didn’t like their sound. I think I must’ve gotten a whiff of something I didn’t like in the first album, and then more of that in the second album, and then even though I could tell they were getting better in Homesick and probably were mostly fine, I was a little sour on them.
But then, I kinda stand by that irked feeling because when I listened to their fourth album, We Switched Bodies, I immediately felt like they’d turned it around and pulled themselves together. That, alongside Younger Than I Was Before (the fifth album) and Earworm (the sixth, their most recent), marked a huge turnaround—a distinct phase. That second phase, the good phase, I think is pretty solid. I enjoyed it. I don’t think it’s anything particularly remarkable, but there are lots of songs that I like and I think the albums are put together pretty well and I like it.
If it were just the parts I liked, I think I’d do a mid-to-high B. Because of the rough start, I think I’ll lower it, but not actually by that much. In my head, I’m kinda treating those early albums as B Sides. They were catching their stride; they were learning. And they did learn! They got better. I don’t want to punish too harshly for being bad at something before getting better. So, I’ll give them a B-. That feels pretty fair to me.
LAUNDRY DAY complete, now listening to: Jamie Miller
tunafruitsandwitch 