Thanks for the heads up, I'll have to check out how they've matured over the years. I enjoyed them back when they were relevant, but as you say they were way too upbeat and simplistic to stand up over time. Definitely some fun guitar riffs to play though.

[–] CarbonConscious@hexbear.net 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Definitely! They've got a lot of understated but really cool instrumentation on this one. I tried drumming along to a few of the tracks, and it's easy enough to get a decent groove, but the subtleties they're actually playing are just completely wild. Like a jazz drummer just going nuts and doing his own thing, but just softly and real gently mixed. It's pretty impressive.

[–] UrsineApathy@hexbear.net 3 points 4 months ago

I finally got a chance to give it a listen and I really enjoyed it overall. The jazzy song structure of the first few tracks (chorus-instrumental improv-chorus) was a little off-putting to me, but after about halfway through I was really everything they were doing. I don't know why but every time I hear an upright bass organically mixed into a rock track it gives me a nice fuzzy feeling. I haven't heard anything of theirs since Contra released and they've definitely come a looong way in terms of mixing and composition.