Nature abhors a vacuum - but what's between your ears?

Continuing my trip across the output of Athens' finest...

Accelerate (2008)

This is the first one I don't own - I was still sulking with them after Around The Sun, so didn't even listen to it for a couple of years.  However, when I finally got round to it, I seem to recall I didn't mind it and considered it a return to earlier form, but that didn't make me ever listen to it again - until now.

1. Living Well Is The Best Revenge
Yeah - I quite like this one.  It harks back to NAIHF or even Document, with a catchy chorus.

2. Man Sized Wreath
And this is pretty similar - they're not hanging around with this album.

3. Supernatural Superserious
Pretty similar again - some nice harmonies on this one though.

4. Hollow Man
A welcome change of pace here - which felt required and it hits the spot nicely.

5. Houston
Some nice hints of Out Of Time mandolin on this, but otherwise I can't say I remember much about it.

6. Accelerate
Fine, but I'm kinda getting a bit "OK - next" at this point.

7. Until The Day Is Done
Many more hints of Out Of Time on this - it was nicely different from what came before.

8. Mr. Richards
This is kinda different for the guys - sorta 60s-ish.  I wouldn't say I loved it, but it was nice to hear them trying something else.

9. Sing For The Submarine
This is a bit different as well - I quite liked this one though.

10. Horse To Water
OK - no more than that.

11. I'm Gonna DJ
This is a bit different as well - more Monster-ish than anything else.  Again, not my favourite but the variety is welcome.

There's a lot of tracks here that are pretty listenable and there's a decent amount of variety across the album.  But, well - how do I put this?  It all feels a bit rushed - which maybe isn't a bad thing given how the last album didn't feel rushed, but it just feels like if they'd taken a bit more time over it then it could have taken a step up.  Picking the tracks I specifically said I liked for my playlist gives me "Living Well Is The Best Revenge", "Sing For The Submarine" and "Hollow Man" - and that feels about right to me, with "Until The Day Is Done" being unlucky to miss out.

Wikipedia tells us we've got a new producer on board - Jacknife Lee (real name unsurprisingly not Jacknife, but Grant).  The band previewed the album live in Dublin during a five night residency at the Olympia theatre and these shows were later released as a live album which I may decide to visit later.  The album was released in streaming form first, with a physical version coming six days later along with, somewhat bizarrely, a deluxe version which consisted of two 12" discs which played at 45rpm.  Because, why not, eh?!?

The critics did however mostly concur that they were back on their game, although I do agree with Time who said "it's a little hard to lose yourself in something that doesn't pause long enough for you to get lost".  Given how their previous effort was received, it did remarkably well - #1 in a load of countries (including here, which I'd completely forgotten) and #2 in the US.

I didn't mind this, but it feels like it would be more fun to see live (and it was the last album they toured, so I should have made the effort) - it's more of an interesting curio than an album I'll revisit.  It is, however, much better than Around The Sun.

Around The Sun - Just the worst
Collapse Into Now - The end?!?