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California First Impressions


Cheerios4u98

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19 minutes ago, GrimCityGirl said:

I think people aren't actually paying attention to the lyrics, thats how it seems anyway, as everyone is like "oh its super cheesy" considering its a song pointing out the hollow fakeness of California I don't really see how thats cheesy. 

I think if I were to cut the track listing down, I'd cut BTD, SOOHM, Sober, Kings, Teenage Sat and Left Alone. I'd be happy with that.

Haha the songs i like the most

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37 minutes ago, bennett said:

if i were in the band, i'd cut sober, possibly, teenage satellites, replace built this pool with brohemian, and make built this pool a bonus track. sober is a borderline country song, and that makes me sad :P

 

Sober is a top 5 song on the album for me.

I really don't get the country comparison. But I like country so it wouldn't offend me anyway!

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1 hour ago, nextmarkhoppus44 said:

True. Also, I know Kings of the Weekend is one of the less popular songs, but the riff from 1:57-2:18 is gold. It's so catchy and addictive that I wish it was more spread throughout the song.

That riff you mention is pretty similar to a 5SOS song Feldy helped produce (Social Casulaty - riff starts around 2:25). Not sure if this has been mentioned on here yet, but I instantly thought of this 5SOS song once I heard that riff. Maybe this is a hint of where John finds ways to improve songs.

 

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51 minutes ago, tsl182 said:

That riff you mention is pretty similar to a 5SOS song Feldy helped produce (Social Casulaty - riff starts around 2:25). Not sure if this has been mentioned on here yet, but I instantly thought of this 5SOS song once I heard that riff. Maybe this is a hint of where John finds ways to improve songs.

 

Wow. That actually made me kinda' sad to hear, its really similar. 

On a lighter note, nice pic, I love Brule.

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4 hours ago, tsl182 said:

That riff you mention is pretty similar to a 5SOS song Feldy helped produce (Social Casulaty - riff starts around 2:25). Not sure if this has been mentioned on here yet, but I instantly thought of this 5SOS song once I heard that riff. Maybe this is a hint of where John finds ways to improve songs.

 

Lol welppp, if it's a Feldy riff, I definitely love his added improvements.

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Given it a few spins and just my personal opinion is the following:

The good:

Cynical is the perfect start to the album. Musically on point and Skiba’s vocals are great.  

SOOHM. Not a fan on first listen- couldn’t get over how cheesy and poppy it is, and the woah’s are a bit overkill. However, it is catchy as hell, has grown on me massively and is an absolute earworm.

Los Angeles-big fan of this, would like to have heard more songs with a rockier/more experimental sound. Could have been on Untitled easily.

I liked them to begin with but Bored to Death and No Future sound even better in the context of the album than as stand alone tracks.

The first half is much stronger than the 2nd half, ‘Cynical’ thru ‘Home is a lonely place’. The first 4 tracks specifically are fantastic. Sober is OK, not amazing, but growing on me with each listen. HIALP is musically beautiful though the lyrics seem to suffer from a lack of imagination.

San Diego- a definite grower. Skiba is fantastic on this, especially on the line ‘I never wanted to know, how deep these cuts on you go’. Best track in the 2nd half by far. Only problem I have with this is Mark echoing the line ‘can’t go back to san diego’ all the time, seems unnecessary, but again a very minor gripe.   

 

The bad:   

After HIALP this album falls of a cliff. (San Diego excepted)

The middle of the album drags massively. There just isn’t enough variety. Kings of the weekend and Teenage satellites can both do one. Dull, generic and just don’t go anywhere. Left Alone is middle of the road and uninspired. Rabbit hole is paint by numbers pop.  A shame but that’s 4 tracks in a row that could have been cut out completely. The same with TOTTM later on. Would have cut all 5 of those.

This is where the overproduction really starts to show, as does the laziness of the songwriting. By the second half it just becomes bogged down in its own homogeneity.  For any Gaslight Anthem fans out there a comparison that came straight to mind is to the overproduction and over reliance of ‘woah-oh’s’ that plagued their last 2 albums. It’s a very similar problem.

California. Musically I really like it, especially the way it builds up throughout, but my god c’mon the lyrics might be the laziest and most cringe worthy this band has ever written in a song. And that includes ones about ‘relationships’ with dogs. ‘Living in the perfect weather, spending time inside together!’ Rewrite the lyrics or have it purely as an instrumental and it would be gold.

Brohemian Rhapsody. The guitar part is just crying out for an anthemic chorus to be developed around it. Do that and you’ve got a proper Blink track circa the Dude Ranch/Enema era. Just feels like a massive wasted opportunity to use it on a joke track.

 

To summarise; this album is so poppy and sickly sweet that it’s like pouring lemonade in your ears. I think there is a decent album in here despite being overproduced and with a bloated tracklisting and more pop than anything they’ve ever done. Personally I would keep tracks 1-8 plus San Diego, and discard the rest. (which I will probably do anyway). Rewrite the lyrics to California and develop Brohemian rhapsody into a full blown 3 minute song and I think that would be a damn good 11 song record.

 

As it is I give it a 6.5/10.

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22 hours ago, thongrider said:

Ok, let's do this!

 

Cynical: This song is pretty ok, I guess it's a bit short, but I don't mind!

Bored to death: The bridge is great, the synths rule! The chorus is still pretty bland.

She's out of Her MInd: Reminds me of +44 a bit, not a bad song by any means.

Los Angeles: Pretty meh, and pretty annoying. The bridge, like BTD brings it up a notch though.

Sober: Not much to say about this

Built This Pool: Actually a promising catchy song, a bit of a letdown, lengthwise and lyrically.

No Future: Definitely the best song on the album!

Home Is Such a Lonely Place: I feel the same as many others. It's a nice little song, I don't necessarily think it sounds out of place, but I can't really tell how great of a song it is. At least it sounds different. I don't know if it will grow on me or just feel forced.

Kings of the Weekend: Same theme as Tom's Suburban Kings(I feel like a lot of those Tom demos would work on this album, and i gotta say, a lot of those songs are way better than most of the songs on the album. But they were also terrible at first, so who knows? I wonder of the theme of the records has been in work since Tom was in the band, especially with all the California references and such) Nothing special about this.

Teenage Satellites: Kind of the same, but a much better song.

Left Alone: I think I liked this one more than I thought I would.

Rabbit Hole: Not really the fillier of the album that it could've been.

San Diego: It's pretty good, maybe it will stand out on the album!

The Only Thing That Matters: I guess I've been missing "Pop Punk Blink". The thing is Pop Punk Blink had great fucking songs, Pop Punk is a great genre when it has great songs, but when they are not it can be an unbearable genre. This was pretty bad, at least on first listen.

California: I think I really like this song, it feels a bit weird, but I do enjoy it more than I enjoyed a lot of the other songs, but it also feels a bit awkward.

Brohemian Rhapsody: This could've been such a great song and starts of even cooler than BTP, kind of a bummer what they did with those songs tbh.

I've listened to it three times now and a few songs more than others. I really think Cynical is a great opener! Sober is staring to grow on me a bit.

I do think there's something missing with the album, but it's also a better than I expected and I too am a bit curious about the songs they threw away. I actually think people are being a bit too negative on Feldy though, I actually really love the production and sound on the album, except for Travis' drumming, which REALLY at times brings the album down. Also the songwriting is way below what Mark and Matt have done in the past, but I actually do think it's better than anything they've made in years. I enjoy Mark's songs on the album more than I enjoy most of what he did on Neighborhoods and DED. Matt's working is also better than most of the Sekrets shit and My Shame Is True. 

She's out of Her Mind was really great on second listen and it's only become better, so cheesy and so pop punk. I pretty much love it. Still not sure about Home, it feels a bit weird, but I still enjoy listening to it. Kings of the Weekend and Los Angeles are both songs I feel like I will be skipping a lot. Even if the bridge in LA is pretty great, not sure why they would put that in such a terrible damn song. I love Teenage Satellites though, I expected it to be more like KIngs of the Weekend or The only thing, but I really love Skiba's chorus and I even love Travis' drums in it. And I love how simple yet effective lyrics are. It might be my fav now. California reminds me a bit of Everybody Hurts by REM

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12 hours ago, tsl182 said:

That riff you mention is pretty similar to a 5SOS song Feldy helped produce (Social Casulaty - riff starts around 2:25). Not sure if this has been mentioned on here yet, but I instantly thought of this 5SOS song once I heard that riff. Maybe this is a hint of where John finds ways to improve songs.

 

I think I like this more than I expected. And the most annoying part of the song is the metal shit.

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Still don't know what to think about it. I have listened to it 3 times and for me the album is weird I feel like if you're optimistic about it it is a good, enjoyable album but if you're not it can feel just kinda meeeeeh and sadly I think I'm leaning towards the meeeeh feeling.. but we'll see.

Yesterday I showed it to a friend that I thought would like it and he was just like "the fuck with marks voice is that him? He sounds so poppy" hahahaha

And props to Skiba, I didn't really had feelings for him but I think he did a great job.

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On 6/25/2016 at 2:18 PM, Chewy030 said:

@Olidamus Where's your impressions? 

Thats cool you value my opinion. :-)

I wish I had some unique review worth something, but I got behind and wasn't able to download it till today It was killing me BTW), and I think everyone has pretty much covered it all. I need to give it more listens perhaps. I think the music feeds article (first link in review page) summed it up almost perfectly. It has great moments, it has not so great moments.  I think given the circumstances (Matt rushing in to take over) they did a damn good job first go around, and I do think if they keep going with this lineup, it will improve. I guess to sum it up, it was almost exactly what I expected. Some great tracks, some not so great tracks, and some in between. A lot of good things,  a few complaints, (most of which can be forgiven if you shut your brain off and just enjoy it).

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As a blink album as a whole, I'd say it's like a 5/10, cause lets be honest, it's missing the other half, Tom. 

As a pop punk record, I'd give it a solid 8-9...It's catchy and fun, but reminds me a little bit "too much" about being a kid, and the fact that the first video is placed in high school, feels like they're trying too hard to hit the younger crowd. I like the album, but it's not a blink-182 album AT ALL. It's a pop punk album, it's a Plus 44 album with guest singer Matt Skiba where they both hide their razor blades and try to pretend they don't normally write morbidly depressing lyrics... Infact, one of the songs on there Skiba does say something about razor blades lol. Anyways. It's a good album, but it isn't blink-182 in my books and shouldn't be classified as one... I miss Tom incredibly much on this, and I wish he was on it and into it like Skiba was. 

so the 5/10 and 8/10 together probably brings it to a solid 7.5/10 I suppose.

 

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