35. Take the Long Way vs. Nothing As It Seems vs. Gone

[digster]

I'd still be leaning towards a creative decision to leave off the bass, even if it's a misguided one. That would be a pretty huge lapse on the part of everyone involved in production (and the band) if that was an error.

But this is maybe the easiest selection this round; Gone has stayed one of S/T's low points for me, even as some other songs from that record have improved for me over time. I like Take the Long Way quite a bit, but NAIS is one of the band's greatest moments on a record with quite a few of them. I still think that last chorus, with Ed's constrained vocal juxtaposed against Mike's guitar and Matt's increased chaos behind the kit, is one of my favorite endings to one of their songs.

[epilogue]

I love all three of these but it's still NAIS by a mile.

[tragabigzanda]

I'd still be leaning towards a creative decision to leave off the bass, even if it's a misguided one. That would be a pretty huge lapse on the part of everyone involved in production (and the band) if that was an error.

The problem with this theory is that a bass track is faintly audible with headphones, suggesting an auxiliary track of some sort that was set as a pre-fader send: The main bass track/sub could be muted, but this aux track is still there, but just barely. That doesn't read like an intention to me; it reads like a fuckup.

[digster]

That's a possibility, but could it also be bleed into a separate mic? You'd think everything would be pretty heavily isolated or going DI, but it a possibility if they were all recording together. But I don't think it's that they didn't record a bass part; I think, for whatever reason, they may have thought it sounded better without it and muted it. Leaving in the bass on some low-in-the-mix auxiliary track by accident when they meant to excise the bass entirely seems like a far more likely fuckup than not noticing there wasn't any bass on a song that should have it, though that's just speculation on my part.

[tragabigzanda]

Yeah I’d totally buy that! Less confident in the bleed headphone bleed scenario, but it’s certainly possible.

[Strat]

I actually like the verses, or at least the first first without a bass. I think it would have been really cool to leave it like that but then absolutely drop the hammer a bit into it to really drive this song into a higher gear.

[Jorge]

I wish someone asked them about it. It's such a strange choice (if it is one)

[tragabigzanda]

I emailed Josh about it when the album came out but he never responded... About a year later, he seems to have lost the production gig for the followup to Gigaton. Coincidence?!

[Jorge]

If it was a mistake, they could easily pull a Kanye and release a corrected version onto streaming platforms. If they were the kind of band to do that (and I kind of think they are)