On the up side, I won't have to publicly shun you for your musical tastes any more.

The first half of this album is musically sparser than their other material I know, AND it sounds like they felt the need to push the upper bounds of Tyson Ritter's vocal range further than usual. It put them in uncharted territory and yeah, they don't handle it well. How do you handle a delicate voice with not much background instrumentation? Mid-way through the album (Breakin', Believe), the instrumentation fills out a bit and I think the mix gets less-bad, in my opinion.

I'm definitely a fan of AAR, and I saw both the Pallidia concert and a performance from 2005 when Move Along had just come out. They were both absolutely horrendous. I turned them both off. Their songs are awesome, but their album performance is definitely a miracle of modern production.

Regarding the mix, the vocals aren't just buried in the mix, the recording quality sucks. It sounds like 128kb mp3 was dumped into a pro-tools session. But unlike Dyson, I'm also disappointed by the overall sonic quality and production on the album. I've heard a chorus of people applauding them for trying something new on this album. To me it sounds like they just took shortcuts.

Thanks for reading!

With respect to the AAR album, I don't have a problem with the vocal performances, though they're not as good as some previous material I've enjoyed by them. My problem is with the placement of the vocals in the mix, and the sound of the vocals, which has less to do with the performer and more to do with the production team. It would be one thing if the whole sound was poorly mixed, but in my opinion it's only the vocals that don't sound up to snuff.

It is possible that they had to bury mediocre vocals, but my feeling is that something else is at play. Perhaps the band or the production team wanted to try something new, but why be subtle about it? AAR is (are?) a modern pop punk radio-friendly band, and the rest of the instruments fit that mold. The average listener would not pick up on the vocals being poorly mixed, so unless they're trying to subliminally introduce the listener to softer vocals, I think any effort put behind the muddy vocal mix is for naught.

Thanks a lot for reading and responding, this is the type of dialog I was hoping to engage in.

I actually enjoy many of the AAR songs you're talking about. Then I saw a live show of them on Palladia (HD music channel). It's unfortunate, but much like many modern artists, All-American Rejects CAN'T SING. Seriously. Their live vocals SUCKED (even after being mixed & mastered for TV). It truly disappointed me.

As long as the music industry keeps serving up people who can't consistently sing, you're going to get occasional crappy vocals on albums. After what I heard, I imagine they had to bury mediocre vocals on several tracks. Maybe folks can do a great job covering up bad vocals most of the time, but some of the time, it's gonna show through.

On the up side, I won't have to publicly shun you for your musical tastes any more.

I'm definitely a fan of AAR, and I saw both the Pallidia concert and a performance from 2005 when Move Along had just come out. They were both absolutely horrendous. I turned them both off. Their songs are awesome, but their album performance is definitely a miracle of modern production.

Regarding the mix, the vocals aren't just buried in the mix, the recording quality sucks. It sounds like 128kb mp3 was dumped into a pro-tools session. But unlike Dyson, I'm also disappointed by the overall sonic quality and production on the album. I've heard a chorus of people applauding them for trying something new on this album. To me it sounds like they just took shortcuts.

Thanks for reading!