doubledagger

I don’t know if this is as good as it was hyped/I thought it was going to be, but I have listened to That’s My Floor approximately three thousand times in the last twenty four hours, so.

Every time I start this record I’m blown away by how beautiful and heartbreaking Marigold is. After that… it’s fine?

Gorgeous warm ambient soundscapes. The recording is immaculate in a way that doesn't feel live particularly, almost in tension with the occasional cough / chair scrape from the crowd - the bursts of applause and moments where Frahm talks to the audience feeling like abrupt wake ups.

Dares to ask the question: “What if one of those late era forever delayed legacy albums was actually really good?”

Early on my thought process was that I was really enjoying it, but if it was gonna keep doing the big atmospheric instrumental intros, I was gonna end up bored. It kept doing those. I did not get bored in the slightest.

I was always sort of into their previous stuff (Twenty-Two Strings especially) but this is a step above for them. They’ve hit on songs with a real groove and everything is just fuller - the step up to a four piece making the difference maybe.

Title track Norther is definitely up there for song of the year for me.

Almost like a Greatest Hits collection of entirely new songs.

Totally effortless listen, despite the dense, genre hopping run time.

I Walk, Non-Metaphorical Decolonization and Writing Poems easily sit with his best songs, along with too many others to name.

It’s not Phenomenal Nature good, which has some songs that are as close to perfect as you can get, but it’s a a comfortable space to exist in.

Jenkins is still on top form when it comes to album centerpieces too - Omakase is reminiscent of the wonderful Hard Drive while still being able to stand by itself.

First time I've properly listened to a Linkin Park record since Meteora as a teenager.

Parts of this work and remind me why I was so into them at the time (Heavy Is The Crown).

Other parts just feel like they're going through the motions, it's all a bit bloodless (Casualty). Two Faced in particular feels like it's desperately trying to be a Hybrid Theory song and ends up, at best, sounding like a bad cover version and largely just serves as a reminder of a better album rather than feeling like a continuation.