thraed for the first glass beach album (and all subsequent glass beach albums)

maximalist prog-jazz-emo for the agoraphobic and apocalyptic. aka my chimerical romance. sorta feels like saves the day, say anything, hellogoodbye, and the hotelier blenderized into a purée. before i heard it i balked at the running time but an hour feels like it goes by in seconds when so many catchy melodies are whipping by your head like hummingbirds. probably the most impressive and ambitious debut album of the year. kudos to tim f for putting me onto them initially, kudos to the rolling emo thread for reinforcing just how great this record actually is. and they're on run for cover now!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxoDHXRpENo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYkPElpuYoo

the MCR connection wasn't fully cemented for me till I watched the "classic j dies" video. great album, very curious to see where they could even go from here, I'm guessing towards more of a live-band feel following some touring. speaking of which I am desperately hoping they tour properly!

I'm also gratified that there's an "internet band" the kids like that I also like because it proves I am not quite yet dead lol

love this record

yess, love that these guys are getting attention. i think the reason why i like this more than 100 gecs other 'internet bands' is that glass beach eschews off-putting archness for a theater-kid sincerity. it really helps carry their ambition and make the album feel like a lot more than just 1000 ideas thrown at the wall.

also the boring but true fact that underneath the "change arrangements every 8 bars" approach the songs are just really fucking good

all the best parts of the brave little abacus meets all the best parts of lemon demon. love em. chatted with them a bit on Instagram too and they were very very nice. extremely talented band.

i am halfway through this record and it's the most absurd and astounding music i've heard this year and i'm amazed it works as well as it does

completely unsurprised to find they started out in the chiptune scene, the band they feel closest to is Crying but they just go a lot further

i think my main issue with this is the emo-ness of his voice clashes with the smooth parts too much

Love this album so much, the transitions are always so satisfying.

i think "dallas" is my favourite on this, a real journey

yoshi's island is my favorite i think

i think my main issue with this is the emo-ness of his voice clashes with the smooth parts too much

― ufo, Thursday, November 14, 2019 1:23 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

i noticed this too, but i actually find it really charming

it's just taking a bit of getting used to, there's certainly a lot to like about it

has imago heard this yet he'd surely love it?

I've played it around him a couple of times and I think he liked it, but wasn't concentrating enough, so I'll redouble my efforts.

It's great returning to this album and finding new parts to love each time. My favourite track changes with each listen, but at the moment it's probably the closer, orchids.

bumping to remind everyone to vote in the year-end poll

the best album

definitely the shortest hourlong album in recent memory

it'll be in my top 5 for sure

oh wow this is fun.. hope it can sustain what im hearing on the first two songs lol

love these track titles

it gets a little less hectic, but the songs remain very very good

lots of ideas being thrown around on this. not sure I can pin down what they are going for but I guess thats the point.

p4k review: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/glass-beach-the-first-glass-beach-album/

joining the blessed pantheon of beloved personal faves hitting the 6-to-7 P4k score range; it's in good company

feel like i must've hallucinated a pfork review of this last year

buncha cool new-ish glass beach related youtube content:

mini album of rough jams/sketches/songs? from j released during the present quarantine
https://youtube.com/watch?v";vH1bkPuQAvk

90 min long 'the making if the first glass beach album'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsjbxWWNKKE

whoops

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vH1bkPuQAvk

glass beach good

gecs: made of wood

i gotta check out that classic j quarantine thing

I started to listen to this yesterday when mentioned in the gecs thread but got interrupted, liked what I heard so far I think.

new song: https://glassbeach.bandcamp.com/track/running

sounds like if the beths covered ave maria. on sale for the low low price of $100.

there's also a neal schon-style power ballad solo near the end, which is cool.

I genuinely thought this was going to be on the Bill and Ted soundtrack for a second and had to check. They sound as good in arena rock mode as any other.

https://glassbeach.bandcamp.com/track/classic-j-dies-and-gets-a-million-streams-on-spotify

super fun acoustic version of "classic j" to celebrate the song surpassing 1 million spotify streams.

ok i finally love this

the more i listen the more I think “classic j” is one of my favorite songs ever

If, like me, you got excited by seeing a 14-minute new Glass Beach track on your Release Radar, you should know it's a (sigh) car seat headrest cover

it's at least an improvement on the original

while you wait for the second glass beach album

https://glassbeach.bandcamp.com/album/alchemist-rats-beg-bashful-remixes

https://glassbeach.bandcamp.com/track/welcome-to-the-black-parade

https://t.co/Dy1ciEB8pK pic.twitter.com/ikr5gHs6Zk

— ??????? (@glassbeachband) September 27, 2023

some activity!

they're back baby! in slightly toned down form, it seems. tho i like this one a lot, it swings

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kx57HI6WEUQ

of course, "slightly toned down" in glass beach terms still includes a jazz/dubstep/hardcore/doom metal freakout that takes up the last 90 seconds or so of the song

What do we think?

emo cardiacs have done it again

IVY I HAVE TO DO MY EOY NOW

do it to the unmellow strains of glass beach, fine

'motions' has rendered me incapable of assembling an EOY

this is way jazzier and looser than the last one and i think that's just great

yes yes yes

rare animal

'cul-de-sac' is unbelievable

haven't had a chance to listen to the album yet so i'm choosing to believe it's a cover of the song from van morrison's veedon fleece

the album sounds in places like Clinic as Of Montreal.

this fucking album

amazing a song like "cul-de-sac" exists, the instrumental bridge is somewhere between anniversary "shu shubat" and bloc party "so here we are" aka right in my solar plexus

I'm on that song right now. It's extremely good isn't it

"motions" has still rendered me incapable of simple menial tasks

some of these merge the ugly and the beautiful so devastatingly

This is great, like perfect even

i like it, luckily i heard it before i saw someone use the 'c' word or i wouldnt have listened

'commatose' is quite quite something isn't it

its better than arrest

It sounds like a dozen odd bands I was told I should like and didn’t so much, but I love this. Melody/chord choices are flattening

this is a total triumph, wow

Holds up after a week.

it's like the first cymbals eat guitars album if it were 10x more emo and 10x more prog

I gave this a quick partial listen, and my enjoyment to less enjoyment progression was sort of real time. Per fgti, it reminded me of lots of stuff all at once, which was both overwhelming and underwhelming. For some reason I kept thinking of Grizzly Bear and video game music and ... Vulfpeck? Don't really know why on that last one, lol. Dunno if I'll give it another shot, not everything is for everyone, but I do love the enthusiasm!

It sounds like Of Montreal (on paper) before that band consistently whiffs every aspect of its execution, it sounds like Black MIDI except designed for repeat listening rather than a single aggressive sugar rush, it sounds like a dozen jazz grad bands I know who haven’t mastered the delicate balance of knowledge and grace (except this band has done so). It basically sounds like the music in my head that I’m not capable of making

Grizzly Bear were defined (for me) by Chris Bear’s biff-clunk Tom Waitsian drumming, that band never attempted liftoff and that was fine for them, glass beach are pretty buoyant in contrast

grizzly bear occasionally dabbled in odd time signatures but otherwise that’s a pretty baffling comparison

I honestly can never remember what Grizzly Bear sounds like, lol. I know kind of prog, iirc.

When I listened to this album at first I assumed the drums were programmed. Then I wondered if the entire thing was programmed.

It sounds like Of Montreal (on paper) before that band consistently whiffs every aspect of its execution

yep!

scowling at both of you

This band does sound like Grizzly Bear, but also Mew, and a ton of other things. I would have never listened to it without seeing this thread being pumped, because Glass Beach is probably the most faceless band name i could ever imagine. anyway, great record.

this album is indeed great. they could've stopped making music after "classic j" with their legacy secured, but i'm glad they kept goin

jeez just a day after declaring julia holter aoty (shut up lj) i'm revisiting this and thinking it's so good we should've delayed the emo poll until this year so it could place in the top 20

amazed at how much it reminds me of j-rock, assuming that's a consequence of how jazzy it can be or how much anime the band members have watched

i hope plastic beach is someone’s favorite album of all time. it deserves to be

plastic death*