toe has a beautiful way of solving this problem of making the entire song follow a certain pattern throughout, with out it sounding repetitive, that makes sense. it made mi look at other math bands differently, can't enjoy most of them now.
The first time I listened to this song--pretty recently--was magical to me. I'm from the Midwest US, but God I'd love to shake the hand of the drummer.
Takashi became my all-time favorite drummer ever since I first discovered Toe. And I love how this band composes in general. It's like the drummer is the lead and it's unlike any I've heard.
The density of math rock is half of the battle of getting into it, the other half is listening to the song 5-6 times so you know where everything is lol. Have fun with the bands this week, hopefully there's some good choices! Also to note, Invalids and TTNG are both math rock bands that have vocals and that you've listened to, so you've definitely heard a little bit before.
Ah yeah, Invalids. Great stuff there. What I remember about TTNG I wouldn't necessarily put in the Math Rock category but it might have just been the songs I've heard.
@Critical Reactions another good math rock band is Delta Sleep. Songs I’d recommend: Single File, El Pastor, Lake Sprinkle Sprankle, Spy Dolphin (if you wanna review any haha) Separate question: for these videos, is it always your very first listen to the song?
I forgot this song existed! I feel almost nostalgic, it takes me back to a certain summer spent with friends on a lake listening to all sorts of happy and relaxing post/prog/math rock songs and having a few drinks.
The first guitar-led mathrock I heard was The Fucking Champs, and the guitarist Josh Smith wrote and produced my favorite Black Metal album Dead As Dreams by Weakling.
The main guitarist, yamazaki, actually did vocals in an emo band called dove, they have an ep you can find on youtuve called pessimistic tourist. Fun fact, the band was initially called smelling cunts
Absolutely stunning, I’ll be adding this to my library immediately! Many thanks to whoever suggested this. I could spend my whole day listening to stuff like this, easily.
In order to fully appreciate this band, you have to watch their live performances. My favorite songs are "Past and Language", "Mukou Gishi Ga Miru Yume", "Long Tomorrow", "Two Moons"......all live versions.
The one thing I really love about math rock (in general) is the combination of instrumental virtuosity and compositional complexity done in a way that's extremely aurally pleasant, almost even what you'd call "easy listening." Typically when you get into the realm of virtuosity/complexity it comes with the music being more inaccessible, but math rock is usually the kind of thing you could turn on and I don't think anyone would be offended (even if it wasn't their thing). The challenge with math rock I've found is making music that's actually memorable, because often what happens is I'll listen to a track and think "that was nice," and I might find myself appreciating all the little virtuosic/complex touches during the song, but when it's over find that it's really hard to remember anything. I think that lack of memorableness comes from a typical lack of strong melodic hooks and/or a lack of structural dynamics, where you get some kind of major, impactful change in the composition. Probably why Elephant Gym is my favorite math rock band is because I think they have both elements in spades. As for this track, I think it's about halfway there in both respects. It's not the most pleasant math rock I've heard, not the most catchy, not the most surprising, not the most virtuosic/complex, but I think it combines all of these aspects fairly well, without any of them individually blowing me a way. One thing that was distracting me was the poor audio quality, in which I could detect some old mp3 compression artifacts (especially the swishiness of the drums) that was rather distracting, and that's a shame especially given the drum playing was a big highlight here.
Spot on. It's stands out from the crowed because it's a jack of all trades. I'm impressed by your ability to hear the compression though. I might be able to hear a difference if this were played against a lossless recording (assuming it wasn't intentionally added) but I doubt I'd be able to put into words why one sounded different. It's such a subtle difference to me.
@@CriticalReactions I spent many sad years listening to bad mp3 compressed audio before I became more discerning, so I'm especially sensitive to that swishiness on cymbals!
I think there are more math rock bands with vocals than bands that are instrumental. A lot of them have some instrumental tracks though, the song by And So I Watch You From Afar that was in the poll is one of their instrumentals but they usually have chant-y repetitive vocal lines similar to the ones here. The more instrumental bands (like Chon) usually blend the math rock sound with progressive rock / metal.
Predecessors in the current mathrock wave have had vocals on songs occasionally. The Fucking Champs, Don Cabellero amd others featured them once in awhile. Chon does as well.
I think the title being "goodbye" is more of a reflection of people in the past. Like remembering friends that moved and you haven't seen them in years and you're just melancholic in a way that it was great while it lasted but you know things are going well for you and them. Idk my own personal "feel" from the song ig.
@@CriticalReactions Before the "djent" label was invented Meshuggah was often called math metal in their early days. I actually think the label fits them better than most bands given how strong their emphasis is on the mathematical aspects of rhythm. I feel like the math term just got attached to bands like DEP and other math rock because their rhythms tended to be very atypical and chaotic-sounding. With Meshuggah the rhythms actually intertwine in such a tight, complex, logical way that it sounds more like what I imagine when I think of math. If Meshuggah is 3+2=5, DEP sounds more like 3+2=fuckyou.
"Busy but somehow still chill" I think that sentence alone basically describes the entire Math Rock genre perfectly.
Love Toe. Their drummer is amazeballs. They don't have many songs with lyrics ...at least not many come to mind. :)
When I first heard this band, and the drums kicked in, I was in tears. So so beautiful.
welcome to toe, you should really listen to their album "The book about my idle plot on a vague anxiety". it really changed my way of hearing music
toe has a beautiful way of solving this problem of making the entire song follow a certain pattern throughout, with out it sounding repetitive, that makes sense. it made mi look at other math bands differently, can't enjoy most of them now.
The first time I listened to this song--pretty recently--was magical to me.
I'm from the Midwest US, but God I'd love to shake the hand of the drummer.
It was the quickest 7 minutes of my life
@@Die-Coughman FRRRR
Takashi became my all-time favorite drummer ever since I first discovered Toe. And I love how this band composes in general. It's like the drummer is the lead and it's unlike any I've heard.
The density of math rock is half of the battle of getting into it, the other half is listening to the song 5-6 times so you know where everything is lol. Have fun with the bands this week, hopefully there's some good choices! Also to note, Invalids and TTNG are both math rock bands that have vocals and that you've listened to, so you've definitely heard a little bit before.
Ah yeah, Invalids. Great stuff there. What I remember about TTNG I wouldn't necessarily put in the Math Rock category but it might have just been the songs I've heard.
@Critical Reactions another good math rock band is Delta Sleep. Songs I’d recommend: Single File, El Pastor, Lake Sprinkle Sprankle, Spy Dolphin (if you wanna review any haha)
Separate question: for these videos, is it always your very first listen to the song?
@@CriticalReactionsthey’re a math rock band with a groovy drummer so you don’t realise you’re listening to a bar of 23/8 or something lol
I forgot this song existed! I feel almost nostalgic, it takes me back to a certain summer spent with friends on a lake listening to all sorts of happy and relaxing post/prog/math rock songs and having a few drinks.
i love how toe's drummmer puts energy and jazzy mellowness at the same time, pushing forward and coming back to settle with the direction of the song
I'm almost exclusively a black metal guy and toe is still far and away my absolute favorite band. They are perfection
The first guitar-led mathrock I heard was The Fucking Champs, and the guitarist Josh Smith wrote and produced my favorite Black Metal album Dead As Dreams by Weakling.
The main guitarist, yamazaki, actually did vocals in an emo band called dove, they have an ep you can find on youtuve called pessimistic tourist. Fun fact, the band was initially called smelling cunts
Japanese math rock always sounds like it was made in a clean room.
i love the drumming from these guys. they have such a recognizable tone. love your insight as well
Absolutely stunning, I’ll be adding this to my library immediately! Many thanks to whoever suggested this. I could spend my whole day listening to stuff like this, easily.
It sounds like you did spend a whole day listening to stuff like this, given your comments in Discord 😀
@@CriticalReactions ….yeeeaaaaah… I did lol.
In order to fully appreciate this band, you have to watch their live performances. My favorite songs are "Past and Language", "Mukou Gishi Ga Miru Yume", "Long Tomorrow", "Two Moons"......all live versions.
They have some great videos of full live performances, definitely worth it to check out.
duuuude, toe is amazing! keep doing more of them pls! greetings from southamerica!
The one thing I really love about math rock (in general) is the combination of instrumental virtuosity and compositional complexity done in a way that's extremely aurally pleasant, almost even what you'd call "easy listening." Typically when you get into the realm of virtuosity/complexity it comes with the music being more inaccessible, but math rock is usually the kind of thing you could turn on and I don't think anyone would be offended (even if it wasn't their thing). The challenge with math rock I've found is making music that's actually memorable, because often what happens is I'll listen to a track and think "that was nice," and I might find myself appreciating all the little virtuosic/complex touches during the song, but when it's over find that it's really hard to remember anything. I think that lack of memorableness comes from a typical lack of strong melodic hooks and/or a lack of structural dynamics, where you get some kind of major, impactful change in the composition. Probably why Elephant Gym is my favorite math rock band is because I think they have both elements in spades.
As for this track, I think it's about halfway there in both respects. It's not the most pleasant math rock I've heard, not the most catchy, not the most surprising, not the most virtuosic/complex, but I think it combines all of these aspects fairly well, without any of them individually blowing me a way. One thing that was distracting me was the poor audio quality, in which I could detect some old mp3 compression artifacts (especially the swishiness of the drums) that was rather distracting, and that's a shame especially given the drum playing was a big highlight here.
Spot on. It's stands out from the crowed because it's a jack of all trades. I'm impressed by your ability to hear the compression though. I might be able to hear a difference if this were played against a lossless recording (assuming it wasn't intentionally added) but I doubt I'd be able to put into words why one sounded different. It's such a subtle difference to me.
@@CriticalReactions I spent many sad years listening to bad mp3 compressed audio before I became more discerning, so I'm especially sensitive to that swishiness on cymbals!
I think there are more math rock bands with vocals than bands that are instrumental. A lot of them have some instrumental tracks though, the song by And So I Watch You From Afar that was in the poll is one of their instrumentals but they usually have chant-y repetitive vocal lines similar to the ones here. The more instrumental bands (like Chon) usually blend the math rock sound with progressive rock / metal.
Wouldn’t say asiwyfa usually have vocals. On maybe two albums
Predecessors in the current mathrock wave have had vocals on songs occasionally. The Fucking Champs, Don Cabellero amd others featured them once in awhile. Chon does as well.
The drums are really good
I remember hearing this live in Barcelona at the apolo in 2016
The drums are wonderful. This band is simply amazing.
I think the title being "goodbye" is more of a reflection of people in the past. Like remembering friends that moved and you haven't seen them in years and you're just melancholic in a way that it was great while it lasted but you know things are going well for you and them. Idk my own personal "feel" from the song ig.
An all time favorite band you should check out their song C next. A great analysis on them as well czcams.com/video/OuWvvnmGOgc/video.html
Toe have the most musical drums.
This is my favorite math rock song. Nice.
Please more toe reactions. This song is great but it's not even close to their most interesting or satisfying work.
Ah nice, this song and album are really good.
i hope you get to check out 40 rods to the hogs head by tera melos!
Real disservice not doing a live version . One of only a few bands where I find the live versions way better . Even have a few up on my channel
Leprous - Nighttime Disguise please
React LeeGatto - Invasion (On SoundCloud)
Pls react to Street Sects
So THIS is math rock... So far from math metal 🤔
Math Metal would be....Dillinger Escape Plan?
@@CriticalReactions Yeah, for one... Interestingly enough, this is what wiki says... en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_metal
@@CriticalReactions Before the "djent" label was invented Meshuggah was often called math metal in their early days. I actually think the label fits them better than most bands given how strong their emphasis is on the mathematical aspects of rhythm. I feel like the math term just got attached to bands like DEP and other math rock because their rhythms tended to be very atypical and chaotic-sounding. With Meshuggah the rhythms actually intertwine in such a tight, complex, logical way that it sounds more like what I imagine when I think of math. If Meshuggah is 3+2=5, DEP sounds more like 3+2=fuckyou.