Just a note, the tracks Call Me What You Like & Consequences were produced by Mark Crew & Dan Priddy. The other 4 tracks on the EP were self produced by the band. The mixing engineer on the project was the legendary Rich Costey. Extra shoutout to Joseph Rodgers, who is an extremely talented recording engineer, especially with how he helped us achieve the drum sounds we were looking for. Thanks for another great video man, whenever we put out new music I always look forward to hearing your thoughts. Peace
mark(the drummer) really is one of the best i’ve ever seen in this genre. wilbur said he played heavy metal drums and it really gives him that extra kick as a drummer, and he’s really just such an amazing drummer
I really felt like this EP was written with live shows in mind. After seeing videos of some of their recent shows, seeing how the crowd gets so massively into singing along it feels like some of the choices on these songs were made for that experience. Thanks for reacting Blake!
This is by far their best work. I still love the older songs, but the 1.5 year break since the last EP has clearly given them time to get a lot better.
I feel like a lot of these songs were recorded with the intention to sound like their live versions. Especially Warsaw and Scum which are practically identical to their love sounds. Call me what you like is definitely by far the best produced song on the EP in my opinion, definitely sounds different live. But overall it’s their best produced stuff yet.
In 'Portrait of a Blank Slate' when Wilbur sings "We could make such a pretty picture." Who else can hear I'm smile, like I can just tell he's smiling when he sings that part.
Great video, as per usual. Here are some random facts about each track POABS: it was originally name dropped when Ash (bassist) called it his favorite track, and many friends of Lovejoy would also call it their favorite CMWYL: This track and its live version are completely different, with the live version being a lot faster and more energetic Consequences: in lives performances there is a woo directly after "drink I've had too much to think" (I wish it was in the studio version) and multiple lines have been changed throughout the time this track has been played live Warsaw: this track was originally a sadder acoustic track as shown in old snippets (which can be found by searching "Choke Lovejoy") and this track was unveiled in the last show before Lovejot played in Warsaw Scum: this track was first played in Lovejoys first gig (which noone knew about until Wilbur (frontman) showed clips from it on stream) alongside Consequences but whereas Consequences went on to be played regularly at live shows right from Hope & Ruin (the first official Lovejoy show) up to today Scum wasn't played until the recent Shaky Knees Festival It's Golden Hour Somewhere: we were originally misled into believing this track was scrapped before it had a suprise announcement a day before the eps release and the line "they'll sell you the rope by which you'll hang yrself" is a direct reference to Selling Rope (Swan Dive Into The Estuary) the closing track of Los Campesinos!'s (one of Wilburs' all-time favorite bands who Lovejoy covered at the end of 2021) 5th album No Blues Also I recommend listening to the old live versions of each track which have some pretty big differences which are cool to see
I originally thought the line "they'll sell you the rope by which you'll hang yourself" was a bastardisation of a quote commonly attributed to Marx which goes something like "the last capitalist will sell us the rope which we use to hang them"
I love how for the first half of the ep he’s kept his reaction really specific on the production of it, and then as it goes on he just slowly moves into pure vibing with the music
you’re so right about the mix. i legitimately could not hear anything will was saying on pebble brain, and while i still have a little trouble during the louder choruses, everything else is a million times better
I had a hard time hearing the vocals during the louder choruses too, so I was a little surprised by how happy Blake was with the mix, but I'm probably just not hearing how well the instruments are mixed. I'd say that's really my only complaint though!
The first time I listened to this new album was in a school computer and it was so bizarre xD Everything seemed compressed and worse than the snippets. Later with the same headphone and on my computer the mix got a lot clearer and although Wilbur could still be louder on the choruses the quality improved significantly. This difference between computers doesn't happen/isn't noticeable with PB so this is even weirder
✨Time stamps ✨ 00:00 - Intro 01:25 - Portrait of a blank slate 09:00 - Call me what you like 13:29 - Consequences 17:57 - Warsaw 23:13 - Scum 27:39 - It's golden hour somewhere Thanks for an amazing video, Blake!
Fun fact about voice processing, they actually used scratch vocals on the original Are You Alright EP because their time in the recording studio was so limited!
They’ve definitely embraced Los Campesinos! as an inspiration, Consequences sounds like it was written by Los Campesinos! and Scum sounds a lot like Dumb Luck
i cant see the lc! comparison with consequences but scum definitely sounds similar to dumb luck, when i first heard it a few months back i heard the similarities instantly 😭 surprised more ppl didnt mention how much the songs sound alike
The lead (wilbur) drops playlists of what they were listening to while making the ep so I’d definitely check it out for their inspiration and similar songs or whatever lol
One thing I would like to add is that in a recent interview, it was revealed that the vocals on the first E.P. are just scratch vocals. They only had two days to record the first E.P. due to lockdown.
Portrait of a blank slate reminds a lot of arctic monkeys earlier songs which the band have said that they enjoy themselves,, which i think is cool! you can hear it in the drums
Describing these guys as "So Killers" is actually perfect. I love the Killers, have been listening to them for AGES now, and I was immediately drawn to Lovejoy because of this EP. That's probably why.
The album credits list Giovanni Versari as the Mastering Engineer, Rich Costey as the Remix Engineer, and Joseph Rodgers as the Recording Engineer FYI Blake!
I did some digging on RateYourMusic for the production credits. The notable names on here are Mark Sterling Crew (from Santana, yes THE SANTANA) on production and Rich Costey (worked on Renegades by RATM, both Audioslave albums, Three Cheers by MCR, Box Car Racer, and so much more) on mixing. You can tell that they went and spent the money and time to get this done as professionally and perfect as possible.
It's interesting to me that you said you didn't really like the lead riff in Consequences, because I think that might be one of my favorite riffs i've ever heard lmao
Guys, can you believe that this whole band was formed by a Minecraft RU-vidr who blew up a nation and his friend from a previous band, a random guy at a burger shop, and a cool dude booked off of fiverr?? I tip my hat to all of them Edit: shoutout to fo3 and Dana for making me read that whole conversation in the replies👌
@@danalynch118 but y’all ain’t giving him credit for the other stuff that he’s done like the music and content he made before dsmp. He’s not just the guy on the Minecraft server he’s more than that.
So rare to find a reaction channel that actually commentates with substantial content that actually adds to the experience of listening to the songs. Great job! Keep these coming!
new lovejoy drop tommorow!! a single called "normal people things" if you plan on reacting to more lovejoy please react to this!! always love seeing your reactions :))
Quick suggestion! I'd love to see the actual video for the albums since Ash (bassist and editor for these videos) adds beautiful visuals and they also hide songs like what they did with its golden hour.
You should totally listen to From Studio 4 - EP, It’s lovejoy but it’s called Anvil Cat and it’s acoustics. it’s all of “Are you alright?” and one extra song but in acoustics. It’s phenomenal and it sounds amazing :]
It's nice to see them paying off on that promise that's been shown in their earlier work. It's a very solid album with a few songs that are likely to become real hits. Makes me excited for their future.
I haven't watched one of your reactions in so long!! I love hearing your opinion again. Lovejoy has such an unique style to me and this EP is giving such an amazing vibe. I love it so much.
first video i've seen of yours and i've already learnt so much!! from an outsider's perspective, i didn't know there was so much that went into producing and it's really inspiring to see how passionate/ excited you are about it- definitely changed the way i listen/ pay attention to music for the better :)
Every time Lovejoy releases an EP I look out for your new video on it. I hope you keep making these. Your insight is always very interesting and really helps me formulate my opinions on the music.
watching this video made me feel like ive never listened to the ep before again. this is by far the best work they've done and i love watching you react
@@amaryllis543 I loved main character syndrome but I feel like it would not of worked in a EP like this, I am happy they cut it but at least gave a node to it existing
Yesss I was just watching you yesterday night in hopes of seeing this! Unfortunately this wasn’t up yet, but I saw your CMWYL reaction and thought it was great
I love this band so so much so when I hear an opinion from someone not super biased (like me) i love hearing their thoughts! Also I really think you should check out some of wilbur's own music ❤
Love the review of the album, many of these songs are now my favorites from Lovejoy, and the music video for 'Portrait of a Blank Slate' brings that song together in the coolest way!
i'm not a member of the band but in the description of the EP on youtube, it says Produced by Mark Crew and Dan Priddy great reactions as always, keep up the good work
The stuff you said about these songs being better than the original first songs they made is so true, I'm proud of Lovejoy, they've made so much progress over the years!
yea came to see if anyone pointed this out, definitely got killers vibes and this solidified it for me. plus wilbur recommended the killers to techno before he died, so its known that wilbur likes them
