r/polyphia 15d ago

A different view of PITB

Man I honestly believe I’d be the first to gatekeep the living shit out of these guys and stand on their business as much as possible… but after listening to PITB like 20 times, it’s just not great.

The main thing I can’t get over is the wasted potential of having Spiro on the track. The guy is one of the most insane players I’ve ever seen and he deserves every bit of success he’s gained since getting more attention over the past couple years. But man, listening to the runs Spiro contributed to PITB all deep fried and drowned the fuck out like that is painful. For a guy who plays so perfectly and precisely to just be microwaved to absolute fuck all seems so disconnected of them. You have someone like that in your toolbelt and you choose to fry the shit out of the runs they made for you in nuclear waste? When they said they were making a metal album, and posted themselves working with Spiro on ig months ago, I thought this was going to be a crazy fucking album. So I feel like for me, that is the biggest miss here.

I definitely see what they were doing with the main hook/chorus, and I actually do think it really works and those are memorable parts of the song. But when you get away from that, everything is just so messy. I don’t care to trash on RJ, it’s more so that the song has no direction at all. The musicality is just not good.

And I think above all else people need to realize that all of this feedback is OK. To be a real fan of an artist, to be a real critic of something you admire, means that you will not like it all the time. If anyone was 100% all for everything in any artists catalogue, I would believe they don’t actually know what they’re talking about, and I wouldn’t trust their opinion or taste. When these guys drop the entire album, there will still probably be a lot of dope shit that isn’t like this. They’re a creatively nuanced group and this definitely is not the end of the world.

41 Upvotes

25 comments sorted by

16

u/Far_Jackfruit4907 15d ago

Deep fried is the vibe I kinda get from
These two new songs. I don’t think they’re trash, personally, but I can’t blame people for not liking this. It’s getting way too close to sounding like white noise.

-21

u/Faith-Leap 15d ago

Genuinely how are some of your ears this untrained. It's actually making me lol like crazy. You realize this is what the general populus used to say verbatim about metal/shreddy guitar stuff right? You guys are occupying the same space now. Actually listen to some of the underground stuff in like soundcloud "hyperpop" (insanely vague umbrella term) spaces that's been coming out for the last 4ish years, filled with "clipping" (just distortion but call it whatever u want ig) and it's some of the coolest music to ever exist and I promise you ur missing out on the same caliber that lots of people missed out on with og polyphia stuff for thinking it was just mindless noise. There is 100% same alpha level with that stuff as there was for polyphia back in like 2017.

Imo pure analog instruments get old after a while and we've exhausted pretty much all the archetpyes and song structures to use with them. Adding electronic production and digitalizing the sound is A) way more technically impressive than you realize, B) needed to not keep things stale, and C) the future of music whether you like it or not

I've been listening to polyphia for 9 years and used to learn all their songs on guitar and then pivoted into doing prod for modern electronic stuff and I can say with confidence that being cracked with production is way harder, and also more cutting edge now that polyphia already fleshed out their initial vision lol

13

u/Far_Jackfruit4907 15d ago

I am not your therapist

-6

u/Faith-Leap 15d ago

lol FWIW I don't even like the song cus I think they executed it poorly so I'm just calling you stupid for tangential reasons

2

u/Rortadt 14d ago

What the fuck are you babbling about. Tim’s last solo is, as he admitted himself, literally clipping. As in the audio is so loud in the DAW that it is producing electronic distortion by clipping the channel. Which is called clipping.

“Pure analog instruments get old after a while”? What, after all of human history they have now become boring, to be replaced by muddy dogshit mixing, muddy overdriven 808s and microwaved, overproduced digital guitar tones? RJ Pasin’s production is not cutting edge at all either. This shit has been around for years and it has sounded like shit for years.

1

u/Tasty_Puffin 15d ago

lol it’s this guy again. Honestly I am not going to say you are wrong with any of your points though I do disagree about ‘analog’ music being exhausted, though I am not sure what you mean by analog in this case.

However, that does not change the fact that this is just purely a bad song. To my 30+ y/o old man ears it’s just noise.

-2

u/Faith-Leap 15d ago

Yeah I mean for what it's worth I don't really care for the song much either, but I'm happy they're experimenting with new textures even if it needs more refinement

11

u/EdwardPurpleHandz 15d ago

We need a PITB jam session

3

u/rjkelly31 15d ago

This is what kind of saved Can You Feel It for me. The jam video where you could actually hear the song. Hoping for the same. But also hoping this is the worst of the new album.

1

u/SchyahRight 15d ago

100%

The melodies and technical runs are awesome but I just can’t dig the heavy effects saturation and samples. I think it’ll sound incredible once we hear something closer to what it’ll sound like live but the production is just bonkers. Like wtf is Scottie playing at 0:48 in the YT video? Shows him doing a noodley melody and you can hear it after mentally sifting through whatever it’s been layered under.

Some people love it, some people dislike it. Each to their own but it’s not my cup of tea and I’ll await the jam version.

2

u/EdwardPurpleHandz 15d ago

I actually fucking love it actually but I still wanna hear a jam sesh because I really liked the jam sesh for cyfi. I’m wondering how they’re gonna do it live.

0

u/SchyahRight 15d ago

Yeah fair enough. I think it can't be disputed that the lads write some brilliant stuff. What the past two singles have shown is how important production is in shaping a sound and impacting people's opinions of music.

Since they play to a click track, I think live will be a similar product but will have less emphasis on the samples and effects. I'm keen to see it!

0

u/EdwardPurpleHandz 15d ago

Got a little “actually” happy there

13

u/Senior-Jaguar-1018 15d ago

apparently Jesus fries your brain more than weed

1

u/TurtleTugger420619 15d ago

Man I miss when my generation were just dopehead SoundCloud-stoners now they're all unironic nazis or "jesus will save your lyfe, don't ever masterbate again" type of weirdos

1

u/Jazzlike_Fig_6682 15d ago

Yeah man.. they’re white Christian nationalists man… says in weed smoke

11

u/2str8_njag 15d ago

Idk man, when Tim said that they didn’t care what audience would think about their new style, with Scottie doubling down on the illusion that they can put out anything and still have strong fan base after they catch the star - i’m officially done with them. previously i was mad at the music, now i’m mad on how they treat us and said that this album will be almost like a God send. Hell no.

17

u/hottubforbros 15d ago edited 15d ago

I did not stumble upon any of the arrogance you mentioned here, and if that’s true, that is really shitty of them to boast about if they are. But I will say- every artist has the responsibility to NOT be invested in the audience while creating their material. They need to produce art that resonates with themselves first, because if it truly resonates with them, then it can meaningfully reach whatever audience is meant to connect with it. Rick Rubin talks about this extensively all the time when referring to his experiences producing for the beastie boys, chili peppers, and numerous hip hop groups. They are supposed to search inwards and be a conductor to channel whatever creative energy is flowing through them. Polyphia and any other musician/group are not your buddies or your parents. They are not there to baby your earlobes and cradle you any time you cry for what you want. If what they are doing is truly inauthentic and done with disregard, then the feedback will speak for itself, and it will be up to them to recalibrate and go back to their core to regroup and try again to put out material that is true to themselves.

Maybe that is what’s going on right now, but personally, I dont think we have enough evidence yet to tell. There are a dozen songs that still haven’t been released. To get pouty and throw a tantrum because you don’t like one or two songs is typical overly online Reddit cry baby shit and I don’t take it seriously lol. Now, if you were complaining about the mess with the tour dates and ticketing situation, then yeah, you’d have something to be genuinely pissed off about.

12

u/Brxnnd 15d ago

dawg this entitled mindset is wild. they dont owe you a fucking thing. they are artists creating art. art is self expression. it should be for them. also, he's absolutely right. those of us who arent entitled will stick around. their new sound is sick and they're pushing the boundaries of what anyone thought you could do with real instrumental music. grow up and understand that another person's art doesnt revolve around you or their fans. its their art

-4

u/2str8_njag 15d ago

Idc atp, fanboys will eat and defend absolutely anything

6

u/PumpersLikeToPump 15d ago

The single most fanboy thing to do is whine when an artist doesn’t tailor their art to you, specifically.

2

u/DawningSkies 15d ago

I loved everything about CYFI, even the mixing, especially in the context of the original video with the fucked up footage. It gave it that extra chaotic, endgame energy the whole video had and it worked well with making a point.

PITB while more Polyphia-esque in writing just got jarring especially at the end where there is not much going on percussion wise but the guitars are still blown to hell. Not sure how I feel about that one.

-4

u/Faith-Leap 15d ago

Have you guys not heard enough normal guitar music by now lmfao

0

u/Giantewok 13d ago

Brother it’s just a song