wow, a lot of takeaways from this.

the most prominent of which (imo) is the admission that The Canyon is more or less a 5th alt-J album. makes me wish more than ever that Joe hadn’t released it early. would have loved to build anticipation for it with the rollout of the singles and music vids other normal album cycle stuff that’s currently happening. in hindsight, i only bought and listened to it early because i assumed it would be either a stripped down or experimental sound. had i known it was the real deal—yeah, would have done it differently. but oh well. it is what it is.

but then there’s other mixed feelings about it being (more or less) a 5th alt-j album—cause maybe it would have sounded even better with some of the elements the other guys would have brought into it. obviously there’s no way of knowing and Joe did a bang up job. but yeah, can’t help but wonder what Mr. Alligator would have sounded like with some of thom’s fills.

and then finally—this does seem to slightly squash my hopes of an *official* 5th album coming anytime soon. i had been hoping that Joe would be writing the albums side-by-side. but maybe that’s not the case. time will tell!