Someone mentioned this album to me last week and it sent it back into my rotation in a big way. It’s one of those albums that sits between being an obvious classic and yet wildly underrated and often forgotten about when discussing the giants of the music scene. It holds up remarkably well, mostly because it sounds incredible with fantastic lyrics. The production is crisp and bouncy. It’s also such a clean sounding album; every little part fits perfectly.

(Oddly, just like the streaming versions, the track listing on here has typos too. The title track misspelled, “Unerwater” – super weird given the streaming versions also having errors.)

Anyway, if you’ve never heard this before it comes highly recommended, and if you have … how’s a great time to break it back out.

“I know I move like an apparition, in a style that’s all ghostwritten…”

#vinyl #northstar

A brief pause to celebrate a new release. The new album from @underoathband dropped on Friday but the record didn’t show up until today. That’s alright though because I think I’ve played this and the ‘Digital Ghost’ version about two hundred times over the past couple of months. It’s a perfect marriage of chaos and melody and they encapsulated just about everything I love from this band in one album. (Also a fantastic gym listen.)

And, for fun, throwing in my copy of ‘Define the Great Line’ for posterity since it’s one of the coolest things I own. House catches on fire and we’re grabbing cats and the gold records. (Ok, and probably Hannah’s violin.)

#underoath #vinyl

Another week in the books and I’m heading into the weekend continuing my early 2000’s pop-punk theme. In many ways this album was the first time post “blink-182 fan site” AbsolutePunk started to see real traffic. The interview baby-Jason did with the band where they opened up about Drive-Thru Records put us on the map (and in the crosshairs). It was albums like this, and bands like @midtownnj, that made me want to start the website in the first place; I wanted to tell the world about these amazing new bands they just hadn’t heard yet. And that idea, and this band, set the stage for so much to come.

(P.S. I’ll toss a link to the archive of that infamous interview in my story.)

“Find comfort in yourself…”

#midtown #vinyl

A few weeks ago I went on a massive @relientk binge. This album in particular reminds me of senior year of college living in an apartment and playing massive amounts of FIFA on the PlayStation with this blasting over the speakers. Many, many memories were made that year, and this pop perfection soundtracked quite a few. Best part is: it holds up! It could be released tomorrow and I’d still be into it.

(The band’s heading out on tour soon so make sure to check their page for dates.)

“And this week the trend…”

#relientk #vinyl

I am on one of those early thousands pop-punk kicks again. You know how I get. Tonight I was going through a bunch of the @drivethrurecs era albums and reading the liner notes, and seeing @minusthesnake’s name in this one still made me a little bit jealous, even to this day! What a gem of an album though, bringing me straight back to sunny college discman days.

“Tell me what you thought about when you were gone…”

#vinyl #thestartingline

I still remember the advance of this album being sent to my mom’s house and giving her specific instructions to call me the moment it showed up. I got the call, drove over, and my first listen was on the drive home, taking the long way, the backroads, and turning it up way too loud. Their manager had told me “not to expect ‘Interventions’ part 2” but I was head over heels for it immediately. So unique and yet ridiculously catchy.

Tick tock, you’re not a clock …

#vinyl #theformat

The reorganization is getting close to done, and I finally have more room for my c̶o̶m̶p̶u̶l̶s̶i̶o̶n̶ collection. This is a nice little section here — from Gaslight to Jimmy Eat World to The Matches. Not a bad run at all. #vinyl

Tonight’s walk back through time is with Something Corporate’s ‘North’ – I loved the part of @amnthewilderness’s memoir going behind the scenes of this record because I have incredibly detailed memories of the build up and release of it. These days I think I’d make the argument it’s almost underrated. This one came out toward the end of college for me and the last few songs on the record felt like they were ushering me out into the real world. #vinyl #somethingcorporate

Moving backward now and we’re into the Jack’s Mannequin era. ‘Everything in Transit’ remains one of my favorite albums … ever … but the other two hold up remarkably well. I have many memories of riding the Max to the airport when @drhannahtate and I first started dating to go see her in Arizona with ‘People and Things’ in my headphones. #vinyl #andrewmcmahon #jacksmannequin

Continuing my @amnthewilderness dive and waking backwards (the Zombie album is already in my feed somewhere), here’s tonight’s little gem. #vinyl #andrewmcmahon

I ran out of room to store records so I’ve been having to move some stuff around and reorganize. Figured while I did that I might as well post some favorites. And, since I recently finished @amnthewilderness’s book, I’ve been on a huge catalog kick of his history lately. Starting with the most recent release … this one has continued to grow on me. At first I felt the vocal effect didn’t quite work in places, but the underlying songs are so damn good it’s won me over. #vinyl #andrewmcmahon #andrewmcmahoninthewilderness

My dad helping me complete the whole Blink-182 collection, and Hannah helping me add to my Thrice one.* And I’m officially very much out of space to store records. Which is probably a problem given I just ordered more with Xmas gift cards. 😬 #vinyl #thrice #blink182

She picked the Thrice record from my list specifically because of the joke/bit from the Always Sunny podcast talking about the band and their stickers. Which continues to crack me up.