Gotta be Fu Manchu. I can still soundtrack thousands of miles in the car/on the bike to King Of The Road.

Skatepunk?! We're not talking about Fu Manchu here…

Exactly this.

"When you were full and sweet as honeydew" was my spit-take moment in Lake Song…it stuck out even as I was casually listening to this album as background music yesterday. No sir, I don't care for that kind of sentimentality.

Look how its face gets all red. It's like a little strawberry!

Minoans did indeed kick ass.

My man!

Hiyoooo! Yessir!

But no one thought to shoot Chris Brown?! Won't somebody please think of the children?!

Tell me about the rabbits, George.

Depends on whether we're going to talk about third-wave ska-punk (ala Less Than Jake), or second-wave "carryover" like the Toasters.  The work of the former (and the bands they influenced) is responsible in a large part for the bad taste left fifteen years later…

Right?!  Who doesn't enjoy twangy songs about whiskey and heartbreak?

By-and-large, probably.  But I'm sure there are other "exceptions" out there, like myself, who will still purchase an album that gets frequent "spins" via my Spotify account (getting ready to pony up cash on the new Grant Hart, as it's been on repeat all week).  If I'm deriving that much enjoyment out of something,…

I wouldn't for a second forget the existence of Neurosis; all of the above led me there (it was my own fault for not picking them up sooner after having seen the name for years before). I do think they transcend any of the "post-" labels that could be handed out; they're less "difficult"and so much more bleak. All…

Now I'm going to have to revisit Panopticon.  I always put it below Oceanic and the masterpiece that is Wavering Radiant.

Aye, those are easily the cover-to-cover standouts.  The Dirty South is hands-down one of my favorite records ever.

I love me some Patterson Hood, but Heat Lightning… still feels like everything he does outside the DBT "democracy."  He throws everything (prolific songwriter that he is) at the wall; some sticks, some doesn't.  I like "untold pretties," but it breaks the momentum a bit, and then the album proceeds to drag a bit until…

I'm with you there; the good on that album easily outweighs the bad.  I think the problem I have with Futures is that JEW realized it was the best/most-cohesive effort at that point, and it's become the blueprint to every subsequent album. I've tried to like the later albums, but all play as rather passionless outings.

So it's like every album post-Futures?  And I may be giving Futures too much credit because it has so many memories that go with it, because I know it also has one of the worst Jimmy Eat World songs on it (Night Drive)…

Hrm.