WARM SPRING DAY
released APRIL 19, 2018
ALBUM 16, RELEASE 41
This was originally supposed to be my first double album. Then I took my laptop to my college's tech support and they told me there was something up with the hard drive. I frantically backed up as much as I could and ordered a new drive. I looked at the 50 minutes of material I'd recorded and cut a few songs to make it about an even 40. Then I hit "publish" on Bandcamp and went to class.
"Road Trip To Iowa" was also something that was supposed to happen. It did not. Oh well. "April Lie" felt like the hit at the time. There's something to it that still holds up. I don't think I mixed it well, but it was 2018 so nothing I put out was mixed well. Something more unique to this album is how destroyed my voice is. I must have been battling a sinus infection. I say "more unique" because sinus infections were a yearly thing for me for a while there. Sterile and Some Sense Of Optimism both feature a similarly diseased voice. "Kind Sister Repeater" is one of 3 songs on this album that I started on Garageband on my phone, the others being "Violet Angel" and "Hold You In My Dreams". I'm pretty sure those are my 3 favorite songs on the album. The outro on this song is especially strong. "Hold" in particular is one of my favorites from my pre-Reaper era (2016-2019). It's kinda rough around the edges, which is sometimes endearing, but also sometimes makes me want to re-record it. I never have. "End of Country Living" seems like it should be a good closer, but I actually think it works better in the middle. "Thursday" and "Down To The Wire" are both songs about April 19, 2018, the day I put the album out. I like the music for both but I'm not huge on the vocals. "Wire" in particular has a really good riff in the verses. For the longest time, I thought I made a mistake putting "Violet Angel" in this spot. Now that I'm listening to the album straight through for the first time in 5 years, I actually think it works better in this spot than "Dreams" would have. "Cold Home Here" is as long as it is specificallly because I didn't like that "Meet Us On The Field" was the longest HW song, and I thought the longest one should be something better. I believe the next HW album also has the new longest HW song on it, so that's 3 albums in a row that set the record for "longest HW song".