DRIFT Series 1 - New album, Nov 1, 2019

[Dino3D]

The tracklisting is perfect to me, both the album, and and the EPs. I'm glad Very silent way is removed from EP1 so I won't have to skip it.
But sadly the ugly cover art remained.

[WhiteNoise]

From a marketing perspective it's very weird to call it a "sampler" instead of an album proper, especially after announcing it as one.

The spirit is still there! But the general public, music critics, etc, may miss this release with the focus being put on the boxset. The 90% may balk at a 7CD package yet won't take something called a sampler seriously. A regular length album that points to the larger Drift series / boxset made total sense to me. Weird they've inverted that idea and made the sampler the lower key release.

This aside. Great tracklist. A serious set of songs. Excited to hear the final episodes too with the new material.

[potatobroth]

Originally Posted by WhiteNoise

From a marketing perspective it's very weird to call it a "sampler" instead of an album proper, especially after announcing it as one.

The spirit is still there! But the general public, music critics, etc, may miss this release with the focus being put on the boxset. The 90% may balk at a 7CD package yet won't take something called a sampler seriously. A regular length album that points to the larger Drift series / boxset made total sense to me. Weird they've inverted that idea and made the sampler the lower key release.

This aside. Great tracklist. A serious set of songs. Excited to hear the final episodes too with the new material.

eh, i dont care about that. if they buy the Sampler, they can do more research and find that there are more tracks. or they can be happy with their sampler.

i love this process. its been such a great year to be a huge UW fan

[34958hq439-qjw9v5jq298v5j]

Originally Posted by WhiteNoise

From a marketing perspective it's very weird to call it a "sampler" instead of an album proper, especially after announcing it as one.

right, but to be fair they didn't really know where this project was going when they announced it. correct me if I'm wrong but they'd already announced it as a 1xCD / 2xLP before half the material had even been written. at some point they probably realized they had more good material than they could showcase in an hour & changed the focus of the project to be about everything instead of just the one disc. I don't think they wanted the public to see it as "an album with a lot of B-sides".

[darmok]

I'll let Rick and Karl worry about commercial success and the general public's reaction. Personally I can't wait for the box set and I'm looking forward to series 2...

[holden]

So I made the Album(sampler) playlist and gave it a listen in that order. Granted, the lengths/versions may change, and I did have to pause to flip over to YouTube for "Mile Bush Pride", but... It actually sounds very strong and flows nicely, better than I expected. Not necessarily the compilation I most prefer, but also not weak by any means (STAR and Imagine a Box are growing on me, and those were my biggest reservations). The front 6 tracks up to BYTWB are great examples of both the banging and introspective, BYTWB provides a breather and functions as the more experimental, then STAR kicks it home. Custard Speed Talk is a lovely closer for me.

Anyway, great fun previewing the compilation albeit from the previous versions.

Imagine the fun we'll have compiling playlists and alt versions from the full series! More so than already, with new tracks and edits!

[dubman]

Originally Posted by holden

So I made the Album(sampler) playlist and gave it a listen in that order. Granted, the lengths/versions may change, and I did have to pause to flip over to YouTube for "Mile Bush Pride", but... It actually sounds very strong and flows nicely, better than I expected. Not necessarily the compilation I most prefer, but also not weak by any means

yeah after running it through a few times it's more representative of the series than what I initially wanted out of the album. I'd replace drum street with something that at least led up to the two big bangers though. it makes the first two tracks feel unnecessarily leaden.

they took pains to make it feel like a compilation though, didn't they? I'm sure they know the difference between constructing an album and having a good playlist, and it seems they opted for the latter when it'd make sense to me to face the commercial challenge of making an album statement out of it. there's an art to that too, after all. it's not just a craven market constraint.

[potatobroth]

the sheer number of tracks is blowing my mind.

[Dino3D]

I also made the album sampler playlist on YouTube. It will be a very strong album!

[34958hq439-qjw9v5jq298v5j]

Well of course it's gonna feel like a compilation if you've listened to the EPs a bunch (as I have). No way around that. I'm curious how it'll sound to people hearing it for the first time.


also we'll have to hear what edits they make on the actual product. Clearly the tracks are edited and maybe remixed some. It'll probably flow quite nicely. I wouldn't expect anything less from them