Board 8 > Rank the Tracks Week 80: La Dispute's Rooms of the House (+Palimpsest results)

(+) Yeah! (+)

Previous results can be seen here:
https://board8.fandom.com/wiki/Rank_the_Tracks

The rules:
1. Listen to the album in full
2. Rank every track on the album
3. For the results, there will be a curve at the top of each list; two additional points between #1 and #2, and one additional point for the next two ranks. This way, the songs that really stick out to someone get an edge that is not immediately negated by someone else putting it lower. In the case of Demon Days, someone's 15th track will get 1 point, 14th 2 points, 4th 12 points, 3rd 14 points, 2nd 16 points, and 1st 19 points. For albums with greater than 15 tracks, everything ranked below #15 will be given 0 points and the scale for the top 15 will be the same as a 15-track album. For albums with more than 20 tracks, you only have to list your top 15 (with 16-20, I still like having the average rank listed)
4. If you want to include comments for individual songs, I will compile them in the results
5. The results will be posted at the beginning of the next topic
6. The deadline to vote is Sunday, September 18 at 8:00 AM EST - though if you are for whatever reason listening to the album around that time, just say so in the topic and I can delay a bit
7. You can sign up to be added to the user cycle - the next person on the list will choose 3 albums which the other users will vote on for the next topic.
7a. To ensure people are being given an actual choice, the three nominated albums must be by different artists. You can otherwise stick to a similar sound or era.
7b. The tiebreaker for these polls will be whichever is listed first in the poll options - make sure to deliver the results in order of your own preference (which will hopefully have the added benefit of influencing people toward your first choice if they can't decide).
7c. I have added a tiered vote structure - the least popular album will be removed and its backup votes distributed to the other two entrants.
8. The Acclaimed Music Bot will take the top album from the three highest ranked artists on Acclaimed Music who have not yet appeared. On the week before, people can argue for an alternative album by those three artists.

La Dispute - Rooms of the House track list:
1. Hudsonville, MI 1956
2. First Reactions After Falling Through the Ice
3. Woman (in mirror)
4. Scenes from Highways 1981-2009
5. For Mayor in Splitsville
6. 35
7. Stay Happy There
8. The Child We Lost 1963
9. Woman (reading)
10. Extraordinary Dinner Party
11. Objects in Space

User Cycle:
9/18: ZaziGuado (Sigrid - Sucker Punch)
9/25: firefdr (Backstreet Boys - Millennium)
10/02: Johnbobb
10/09: VeryInsane
10/16: FoolFantastic
10/23: Seanchan
10/30: Giggsalot
11/06: RyoCaliente
11/13: darkx
11/20: neonreaper
11/27: Great_Paul
12/04: jcgamer107
12/11: ChichiriMuyo
12/18: BlueCrystalTear
12/25: MetalmindStats
1/1: Acclaimed Music Bot
1/8: HBJDubs
1/15: Raetsel_Lapin
1/22: Steiner
1/29: Snake5555555555
2/5: Jesse_Custer

Protest the Hero - Palimpsest results

The participants sorted by deviation from final results:
FoolFantastic (22)
TheArkOfTurus (24)
Steiner (26)
VeryInsane (34)
HBJDubs (38)
Seanchan (42)
Johnbobb (44)
MetalmindStats (44)
BlueCrystalTear (52)
Raetsel_Lapin (52)

General Album Comments

Seanchan: Did a first listen a few days ago and, uh, yeah...

What a bunch of you were saying last week (for So Long, Astoria) applies for me this week. This was just a long slog of "whatever"; a bunch of okay/fine metal instrumentation but with vocals that didn't seem particularly great and didn't feel "connected" to the music.

We'll see if my opinion changes with more listens but I am skeptical when my initial impression was so poor.

BlueCrystalTear: This is really a split of 10/2/1. Ten songs all do the same thing with only a little variance. Two other songs also do the same thing, which makes those standouts. And there's the one that really, really stands out because it's the one that helps the album the most. I would have found this album unbearable without it there. My #1 is without question.

Raetsel_Lapin: Having listened to this three times now, I still don't know how I actually feel about this album. Progressive metal isn't exactly my favorite genre of metal and there are several songs here that I very aggressively dislike--I do not care for intense or epic drumming and there's a LOT of that here. To an actively painful degree at times. And yet, there's also at least one absolutely fantastic song that I love & I like the themes of the album. The darker side of American history with genocide, mass incarceration, suicide... I'd say that I generally enjoy the stories they chose to tell and the lyrics used to tell them. So this is simultaneously 'a very cohesive album that tells compelling stories & featuring an incredibly high scoring song, the likes of which few albums can ever attain' and 'actively painful at times, in ways that I hate'.

I have absolutely no idea how I would score this album as a whole (though, I suspect, having a 9/10 song will place this on the higher end of this cycle's "Rank the Albums" regardless), but I guess I'm thankful we covered it? It's all over the place with incredibly high and low scoring songs, but it's never boring at least.

FoolFantastic: Oh hey, I kind of liked this one despite not typically listening to this kind of music. However, the vocals felt off to me, and I'm not completely sure why.

TheArkOfTurus: I haven't listened to this a ton like I have some other PtH albums, but I'm not really sure why. All of it is fantastic, and I'm glad this got picked to remind me that I really should have.

HBJDubs: Protest The Hero is like The Ataris to me just in a different genre. Nothing sticks out, but it's a good listen when I'm doing something else.

Seanchan: Two more listens did not change my opinion. I just didn't care for this. I feel like I should like this but my reaction was for the most part "meh". Two of the three instrumentals were actually very nice, to the point where it made me wonder if there's any classical music that would work for Ranking. The final instrumental is clearly the worst (of the 3), and the shortest, so I just put it last. The "real" songs on the album didn't do very much for me but I tried to rank them as best as a could, despite my flagging interest.

VeryInsane: Most of my familiarity with Protest is Fortress and Kezia. I think this one was pretty good, albeit it took a little while to get the ball rolling. The sides are ok interludes but I completely forgot what Harborside was, hence why it got the boot.

MetalmindStats: A highly arbitrary ranking, all-in-all - ask me tomorrow, and I might maintain only my first place and last two ranks. That somehow feels fitting for an album I would really appreciate if I were a fan of this type of music.

Palimpsest track ranking

13. Hillside (Track #12)
Score: 34 (Average Rank: 10.6/13)
Biggest Fan(s): BlueCrystalTear (#5)
Biggest Detractor(s): Steiner, FoolFantastic, TheArkOfTurus, Seanchan (#13)

BlueCrystalTear: "Hillside" is another instrumental interlude and I find it curious that they had one on either side of the album's nadir; this sounds much like "Mountainside" but lacks the same effectiveness since it was so soon after it. At this point, it didn't really add anything, and lacks the same memorability as the first two.

12. Gardenias (Track #11)
Score: 46 (Average Rank: 9.4/13)
Biggest Fan(s): MetalmindStats (#4)
Biggest Detractor(s): BlueCrystalTear, Johnbobb (#13)

BlueCrystalTear: "Gardenias" is awful. I do wonder if this is due to its track placement since it sounds no different than the others. The end outro is the only part I rather liked musically, though I think the song coming to an end helped too.

Johnbobb (responding to BlueCrystalTear's first sentence): I had mixed feelings on the album on the whole but this I absolutely agree with

MetalmindStats: Epitomizes everything I enjoy about Palimpsest and also all that I don't.

11. The Migrant Mother (Track #1)
Score: 58 (Average Rank: 8.3/13)
Biggest Fan(s): Johnbobb (#3)
Biggest Detractor(s): MetalmindStats (#13)

BlueCrystalTear: "Migrant Mother" is kind of a mixed bag for me. There are times where I actually find it groovy, other times at which I find it appalling. I presume you guys know me well enough by now to know which parts are which.

10. Soliloquy (Track #7)
Score: 58 (Average Rank: 8.2/13)
Biggest Fan(s): VeryInsane (#5)
Biggest Detractor(s): HBJDubs (#11)

BlueCrystalTear: "Soliloquy" is an awesome word. This song is not one of those. The daemonic chanting does not work here like it does in "All Hands" either.

9. Mountainside (Track #10)
Score: 59 (Average Rank: 8.5/13)
Biggest Fan(s): BlueCrystalTear, Seanchan (#2)
Biggest Detractor(s): HBJDubs (#13)

BlueCrystalTear: I see another short song called "Mountainside" and the running theme with the names and conclude this must be what it ultimately is: A welcome instrumental interlude that, although short, feels like a movie soundtrack song. This one is more tragic, but it's still great, and a welcome reprieve that would've worked better two songs ago.

8. Reverie (Track #8)
Score: 75 (Average Rank: 7.1/13)
Biggest Fan(s): HBJDubs (#1)
Biggest Detractor(s): Seanchan (#12)

BlueCrystalTear: "Reverie" is when I start to get tired of this shtick. This is the fourth straight song that sounds the same. It's become apparent what my #1 so far is, the one that actually stands out. Like last week, my criticism for redundancy is that it renders the entire thing unmemorable. This one is just the same song as the last three and could have been removed.

7. Harborside (Track #4)
Score: 77 (Average Rank: 7.3/13)
Biggest Fan(s): BlueCrystalTear, Seanchan (#1)
Biggest Detractor(s): VeryInsane (#13)

BlueCrystalTear: "Harbourside" is something completely different than the first three, a one-minute instrumental that sounds like it's from a climactic romcom scene. I love it for this, and that cooldown from all the banging is very, very welcome, and something So Long, Astoria lacked entirely. It really helps the rest of the album by just being there, and it's an awesome minute of music to boot that's hard to believe came from the same guys who made the rest of the noise.

Raetsel_Lapin: A surprisingly beautiful instrumental that would be a true highlight if only it were a bit longer... I feel the minute long runtime does not leave the listener enough time to fully soak in and appreciate it, though what is here is fantastic.

6. The Canary (Track #2)
Score: 78 (Average Rank: 6.4/13)
Biggest Fan(s): MetalmindStats (#2)
Biggest Detractor(s): Seanchan (#11)

BlueCrystalTear: "The Canary" is worse. At this point, I am starting to realize what my issue is here: The drums are at times overwhelming. It feels like it's almost impossible for a drummer to keep banging that fast, and the end result is needles in my back. The "feel" of the music is just too much.

5. Rivet (Track #13)
Score: 82 (Average Rank: 6.2/13)
Biggest Fan(s): Johnbobb (#1)
Biggest Detractor(s): MetalmindStats (#12)

BlueCrystalTear: "Rivet" is just the usual fare that summarizes the entire album. That's all it is. The outro is nice and certainly better than some of the others.

4. Little Snakes (Track #9)
Score: 93 (Average Rank: 5.2/13)
Biggest Fan(s): Steiner (#2)
Biggest Detractor(s): HBJDubs (#9)

BlueCrystalTear: "Little Snakes" is no different than most of this album so far. I do like it better than a few others on here because there's nothing that makes me dislike it more than those.

3. All Hands (Track #5)
Score: 98 (Average Rank: 5.1/13)
Biggest Fan(s): Raetsel_Lapin, FoolFantastic (#1)
Biggest Detractor(s): Johnbobb (#12)

BlueCrystalTear: "All Hands" is much like the first two tracks, but I like how it starts out - and the daemonic chanting actually works as a way to separate it from the other songs here, but not done in a way that sounds too screamy. I... actually welcome it?

Raetsel_Lapin: I actively love this song and feel that it fully justified ranking the album just to get a chance to listen to it.

2. The Fireside (Track #6)
Score: 106 (Average Rank: 4.9/13)
Biggest Fan(s): Steiner, MetalmindStats (#1)
Biggest Detractor(s): Raetsel_Lapin (#13)

BlueCrystalTear: "The Fireside" is... no thanks. Screamiest song so far. It's nothing but earsplitting noise, no different than crying children. I like the ending better, but not enough to redeem the song.

1. From the Sky (Track #3)
Score: 116 (Average Rank: 3.8/13)
Biggest Fan(s): TheArkOfTurus, VeryInsane (#1)
Biggest Detractor(s): Raetsel_Lapin (#11)

BlueCrystalTear: "From the Sky" starts out indistinguishable from the first two. You could legit play me a 15-second clip of any of these first three songs and I would not be able to tell you which one it was from. There is a very different part that's a lot softer in the second half, which is why I like this better.

Explanation for my choices: all 3 are ones that missed their chance in previous weeks.

Volume. 3 - One of my all time favorite albums, and one of (what I consider) the best examples of modern metal that goes heavy and dark just enough to not hit the point of incoherence. This was the 9-man metal band at their prime, with Joey Jordison, Corey Taylor, etc all on the top of their game

When I Woke - Another personal favorite, mostly known for Send Me On My Way (and if you refer to it as "the Ice Age song," I WILL hate you), every song on this album is extremely catchy and stylish in a way no other group quite matches

The Mollusk - Is it one of my all time favorites like the other two? Probably not. But it IS weird as hell and completely unpredictable song to song. Years later I still can't decide how I feel about it. It's an ocean-themed concept album that barely fits into a given genre

The most popular song from each:

https://youtu.be/6fVE8kSM43I

https://youtu.be/IGMabBGydC0

https://youtu.be/tkzY_VwNIek

1. Woman (reading)
2. Stay Happy There
3. Woman (in mirror)
4. The Child We Lost 1963
5. Hudsonville, MI 1956
6. Objects in Space
7. Scenes from Highways 1981-2009
8. Extraordinary Dinner Party
9. First Reactions After Falling Through the Ice
10. 35
11. For Mayor in Splitsville

This album absolutely wrecks me every listen. It's an album that manages to feel raw and off-the-cuff, like someone writing in a journal about their disparate memories decades after the fact, recollecting trauma and emotion in a euphoric manner, yet make no mistake, every note and strained lyric is exactly where it's meant to be, as La Dispute weaves together an impressive narrative of widespread tragedy, personal heartbreak, and the mundanities of daily life that keep the world spinning. Much like the events portrayed in the album, La Dispute bounces between the soft sounds of a daydream memory and the death-curdling racket of nightmarish pain, such as the case with the punctuated drums and delicate words of Dreyer on "Woman (reading)" giving way to an outpouring of recollection, with the same instrumentals there now more distorted and scratched as if Dreyer's memories were twisted and corrupted in some way. I use this example because I think that track captures this album's tones and messages perfectly. It's a centerpiece that perfectly captures those slow days that always meant the most to you but can never get back. Tiny dots on an endless timeline.

The album opens with "Hudsonville, MI 1956", a track that unfolds like a lurid horror novel. It depicts a recently married husband and wife taking separate trips as a tornado tears through the titular town. Dreyer's lyrics are what nightmares are made of, chock full of intense detail, veering wildly from mundane distractions like building a bookshelf to the grotesquery a woman and her unborn child being thrown into a barbed wire fence. The punctuated vocals, guitars and drums become increasingly more choppy and broken up, the desperation increasing, ands the lyrics have a double effect of signaling the very collapse of the husband and wife's union and fading passion which then unfolds out in the rest of the album's winding and spiraling narrative. The album rewards close attention as every track here calls back or forward to another in some way. There are album tracks here that are actually fully capped (HUDSONVILLE, HIGHWAYS, & CHILD) to signal where they take place which is just such a cool detail, but it's also important because this storyline runs parallel to Dreyer's own experiences with the same thing - as history repeats itself in the worst of ways. Instead of a tornado, it's a bridge collapse, and much like Dreyer's own family history he experiences the same strife and separation. Dreyer's personal tracks often tend to highlight real life as the tragedies take place in the background, such as the absolutely amazing "Stay Happy There", a near unstoppable hardcore onslaught that feels like the most terrifying argument your parents never had as details such as scouring a kitchen for a knife or coffee boiling on the stove feel as huge to an individual as a bridge collapse causing pain and horror to countless individuals. It might feel in bad taste to say that anywhere else, but the way the guitars and Dreyer screams everything out makes you believe it too.

Rooms of the House has moved me to tears and has made me rethink life in ways I never thought possible, and has been a constant present in my life ever since I heard back in 2016. Honestly my favorite track can be something different every time. Like, I think "The Child We Lost 1963" is the most lyrically proficient song on the whole album, but it's so fucking hard to listen to sometimes that I just gravitate towards other tracks sometimes. Or "Objects in Space", a spoken word entry that caps off the album, an epilogue to everything that's at once an emotional goodbye to a past life and a fresh step towards something better. Retroactively, I actually compare this album to The Caretaker's Everywhere at the End of Time. Though about different subjects, that ebb and flow of memories being lost to the void feels so apt to Rooms of the House, the subdued and contorted sounds combining into one for a whole experience unlike any other.

Hmmm once again my planned next #1 band comes up in the poll...

Johnbobb posted...

When I Woke - Another personal favorite, mostly known for Send Me On My Way (and if you refer to it as "the Ice Age song," I WILL hate you), every song on this album is extremely catchy and stylish in a way no other group quite matches

I would never refer to it as the Ice Age song because it's the Matilda song.

Snake5555555555, I enjoyed your thoughtful write up and how much the album means to you.

I say that because you might not want to read the rest of my post...

Did a first listen and I feel like this is a repeat of last week, just with more traditional rock rather than metal. Once again, I failed to find much in the instrumentation and found the vocals to be not good. It was just a lot of yell-y/scream-y vocals with some seemingly random rock beats. Again, I just felt a disconnect between the vocals and the instrumentation. This is 10+ minutes shorter than last week's album but you could have fooled me with how interminable it felt.

Okay, now let me try to walk it back some.

I will of course be giving this another few listens this week. And I will try to pay more attention to the lyrics. I listened to this on an afternoon walk and that's not particularly conducive to absorbing/appreciating lyrics, especially for me with a new album. I think I find more enjoyment in how singing melds with the instruments (maybe some of the reason I enjoyed Roses so much with the French lyrics). An album that's so lyric and story focused is a tough sell for me and there was certainly points where my brain went all Charlie Brown's teacher (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ss2hULhXf04). All that said, I kind of enjoyed the last song a bit.

jcgamer107 posted...

Hmmm once again my planned next #1 band comes up in the poll...

Ooooh which one?

Seanchan posted...

I say that because you might not want to read the rest of my post...

Perfectly okay! I hope the album grows on you once you pay more attention to the lyrics. Jordan Dreyer, the vocalist and main lyricist, would probably agree that he's not the best singer in the world, as his background is mainly in poetry and literature.

Johnbobb posted...

Ooooh which one?

I was set on Quebec by Ween

up

1: Woman (reading)
2: First Reactions After Falling Through the Ice
3: The Child We Lost 1963
4: Objects in Space
5: Scenes from Highways 1981-2009
6: Hudsonville, MI 1956
7: For Mayor in Splitsville
8: Woman (in mirror)
9: Extraordinary Dinner Party
10: 35
11: Stay Happy There

bump

might not be able to rank, we'll see how busy i am at the weekend, but from early listening i love this

bump

1. Woman (in mirror)
2. Objects in Space
3. For Mayor in Splitsville
4. The Child We Lost 1963
5. Stay Happy There
6. Extraordinary Dinner Party
7. 35
8. Woman (reading)
9. First Reactions After Falling Through the Ice
10. Scenes from Highways 1981-2009
11. Hudsonville, MI 1956

Sorry, this one's only getting two listens this week. I did sit down and pay more attention to the lyrics, which really revealed the absolute DENSITY of this album lyrically. Like, there's hardly any choruses at all, which is just tough for me because there's nothing to latch onto. So many of the songs just start and it's a 3.5-4.5 minute barrage of story, which would be fine except I find the singing to be kind of atrocious, especially when he got into that yell/scream range. I also did pick up on some of that interweaving of lyrics/themes/whatever between some of the songs.

Woman (in mirror) was a fairly easy choice as #1. It didn't grate on me, had a nice little beat, and I did enjoy that lyric "tiny dots on an endless timeline". I already mentioned how a kind of liked Objects in Space on my first listen and that remained the case, despite it being spoken word rather than singing. The middle songs had some good lyrics or poignancy. The ones at the bottom had too much yell/scream for my tastes at were kind of hard to get through.

Just to be clear, I'm not a fan of this. I'm glad to have given it a shot but I cannot envision myself ever listening to this again.

Woman (in mirror)
Stay Happy There
Objects in Space
Hudsonville, MI 1956
The Child We Lost 1963
Woman (reading)
Extraordinary Dinner Party
Scenes from Highways 1981-2009
35
First Reactions After Falling Through the Ice
For Mayor in Splitsville

Last day

1. HUDSONVILLE MI 1956
2. Woman (in mirror)
3. First Reactions After Falling Through the Ice
4. Extraordinary Dinner Party
5. SCENES FROM HIGHWAYS 1981-2009
6. Woman (reading)
7. THE CHILD WE LOST 1963
8. Stay Happy There
9. Objects in Space
10. 35
11. For Mayor in Splitsville

This album feels sort of personal to me in totally different ways than it must have been to its makers, which I reckon is only fitting.

35
Woman (Reading)
First Reactions After Falling Through...
Stay Happy There
Woman (In Mirror)
Scenes From Highways 1981-2009
Hudsonville MI 1956
Extraordinary Dinner Party
The Child We Lost 1963
For Mayor In Splitsville
Objects In Space

This album sounded interesting but with funeral and family around I was unable to give it a listen

I didn't have an opportunity to give this a listen, either. Still very drained from the last two weeks. This week will be a lot better.

Neon, sorry for your loss.