Collected Animals

Jam wrote:

Yeah I absolutely think this is the best song they've ever done. So deeply emotionally resonant and HEALING. Can't get over the imagery of being submerged in a shimmering pool. but like you can breath underwater and spend as long as you want down there. It's unreal that I'm left at almost a loss for words with it. Cannot get enough.

It's really funny you should say this. I have a baby due soon and we're happy to have a water birth. I was just listening to this song thinking how absolutely perfectly it would suit that whole experience. I just need to convince the wife now haha.

this would be a transcendent way to enter the light of the world...hearing "Royal and Desire," damn you child would be blessed

Empty Bliss is a great album by the way - one of the very best of the 2010s

AnEmptyBliss wrote:

Jam wrote:

Yeah I absolutely think this is the best song they've ever done. So deeply emotionally resonant and HEALING. Can't get over the imagery of being submerged in a shimmering pool. but like you can breath underwater and spend as long as you want down there. It's unreal that I'm left at almost a loss for words with it. Cannot get enough.

It's really funny you should say this. I have a baby due soon and we're happy to have a water birth. I was just listening to this song thinking how absolutely perfectly it would suit that whole experience. I just need to convince the wife now haha.

this would be a transcendent way to enter the light of the world...hearing "Royal and Desire," damn you child would be blessed

Empty Bliss is a great album by the way - one of the very best of the 2010s

Yeah it sure is! I always just loved the title of it too, hence my username I guess

Before listening to the album I was so sure Cherokee was going to be the highlight. Then I got to Royal and Desire. What a perfect closer. One of their best recordings in years. They got to the tasty place.

Okay so... the last time i heard this song was at Cain's Ballroom in Tulsa OK and... I remember being so fucking moved by the set and yet confused, thinking "did I miss an album? were these on campfire songs, danse manatee or something? Am I not a true fan? WHY don't I know half of these songs?!" I heard some people whispering in the crowd occasionally that these were new songs, but I doubted myself, still.

And then I got on Collected Animals afterwards (for the first time) and was like... oh shit. I have been privy to something really special and new. So here I return just to say... as a first time post:

God damn, all the tears I've been holding back from January just came bursting out at the end of this record, with this exaltation of a song. AC doing important things for my emotional health, as usual.

This song goes from Panda, to Deakin dont lose your name, to the last section... holy fuck

Does the auto tune down down down make anyone else think of 2019 for a moment? The simplicity of a pre-pandemic time ...

Yeh totally. And I love how they only really use it once. You’re waiting for it, waiting for it, then it comes.
Like a microclimax for Avey’s little DDD backing part. And a reminder of where these songs started.

I haven't connected emotionally with a song like this in a long time. The "song shuts my eyes" section is so fucking intense.

The end of Royal and Desire sounds like the endings of Safer and Carrots mixed together
Anyone else hear that? Gave me an uncanny feeling like I've been here before but I cannot place it weeeee

little guitar lick between verses

love avey's "down dooooown doown" backing bits
that ride cymbal surge halfway through is brutally good. like clouds parting
I know this has been resolved but the "sax" sound people keep hearing is definitely avey with autotune

the song has such a great natural momentum. often slow 6/8 tunes to me feel so plodding and forced but this is just effortless. Like floating on a lake

and finally, I can kinda hear what that reviewer meant comparing this to the war on drugs lol.... still so way off base but yeah I hear it

little guitar lick between verses

This is the best little bit

Definitely appreciate that they kept the autotune in a couple parts. Didn’t realize why it felt so nostalgic to me but pointing out the time machine back to pre pandemic times is so true. This is gonna go down as one of their best ever songs for sure

it's weird, some ppl on the board are saying this is their most straightforward, normal song theyve ever made, and I just dont feel that at all. this song oozes and glimmers at the same time

i think half of PW gets the normie song award and maybe father time

It always reminds me a bit of this weepy ballad from Christian indie rockers, Starflyer 59, which I enjoyed enough to remember from twenty years ago. I don't know anything about the band, but the drums and piano instantly recalled this.

https://youtu.be/nieGqSUDRWI

The R&D drums are the most mainstream rock they've ever sounded to me, but not in a bad way.