PunBB

I've read several times in interviews from the band (Robbie mainly), that they feel In Violet Light didn't turn out the way they had hoped it would.
I think this is a borderline insane statement, as IVL has many songs I regard as Hip Classics.

One of my all time favourites has always been 'Use It Up'. Listening to bootlegs from 2002, I absolutely love it when they would start the show with 'Use It Up' - the pre-recorded drum track creeping onto the PA as the crowd roars when the boys come out.

'Use It Up' isn't just an IVL fav, it's one of my fav hip tunes period.

When opening a show, I always felt that the lyrics would almost challenge the audience to immerse themselves in The Hip experience, and to let go of reality for the remainder of the show. "For music that can take you away"

Also, I like to think the line "Don't save a thing for later" can be applied to the band also challenging itself: There is no tomorrow, only now. Rock the fuck out.

If it were up to me, I would have started the album with Use It Up, and saved Are You Ready for someplace else on the tracklist.

Anybody else have some love (or hate) for IVL track #2?

I can't stand it myself. Not a fan of songs about music or being in a band, in general, and while the basic statement 'use it up/don't save a thing for later' is attractive, the track as a whole is a dud. Terrible 1-2 punch to start a very substandard record.

IVL on the whole is written better than it sounds, by which I mean the songs are mostly decent, but the recording of the songs is awful. That said, M@W and IVL represent a real creative trough for the Hip in my opinion. IVL at least finds Gord beginning to write focused lyrics again, but all told something seems to have been seriously wrong at that point.

I like Use it Up, but Are You Ready is an awful song. One of the worst in their catalogue in my humble opinion. The fact that they left gems like Problem Bears, Ultra Mundane, and Forest Edge on the cutting room floor in favor of duds like Are You Ready and Throwing Off Glass is absolutely baffling to me. That being said, the rest of the album is pretty damn solid. I agree about the production being sub-par, but I think Good Life, Darkest One, Leave, Dire Wolf, and The Dark Canuck are some of the best tunes these guys have ever penned.

I'm not sure I was fully sold on Throwing Off Glass until I saw it live in 2009. There's a vibe to that song in performance that is missing on the record.

Now that I think of it, I can probably say the same thing about The Dire Wolf, however Wolf was a lot easier to see live back when the album was released 13 (!!) years ago. The Gems->Wolf combo was stupid fun to see live.

with all due respect sean, you think that everything the band does is amazing/awesome/classic

the album is garbage....

Entitled to your opinion of course but for me far from garbage and I don't think everything they do is gold, can't stand WATS just skip the whole thing entirely.

Dark Canuck17 Wrote:Entitled to your opinion of course but for me far from garbage and I don't think everything they do is gold, can't stand WATS just skip the whole thing entirely.

I'm also not a big fan of WATS. 4 great songs (Morning Moon, Depression Suite, Last Recluse, Country Day) surrounded by below-average filler. I remember being enthusiastic about it when it first came out, but I think part of that was just the initial excitement of having some new Hip to listen to. Over time though, I don't think it holds up very well. I think NFPA was a significant improvement in quality and righted the ship a little bit. Here's hoping their new one will be even better.

mark Wrote:with all due respect sean, you think that everything the band does is amazing/awesome/classic

with all due respect mark, i disagree.
I don't love every IVL track, but Use It Up is not only a fav on the album, it's a fav all-time track.

direwolf74 Wrote:I like Use it Up, but Are You Ready is an awful song. One of the worst in their catalogue in my humble opinion. The fact that they left gems like Problem Bears, Ultra Mundane, and Forest Edge on the cutting room floor in favor of duds like Are You Ready and Throwing Off Glass is absolutely baffling to me. That being said, the rest of the album is pretty damn solid. I agree about the production being sub-par, but I think Good Life, Darkest One, Leave, Dire Wolf, and The Dark Canuck are some of the best tunes these guys have ever penned.

That song never sat properly with me from the very first time I heard it. The guitar riff intro sounds so out of tune to me. Obviously it was meant to sound like that, but I'll never understand why?? Horrible, horrible riff.

Fully agree on there was some stand out tracks though. The Dark Canuck has one of my favourite lyrics "inside there's an army waiting for their marching orders from you".

Plus, The Darkest One has to be hands down the best video ever in the history of videos! Its amazing what one bucket of chicken will get ya! :thumb:

Use it Up isn't just a song, it's a philosophy. At some point, Gord decided he was going to try and publish everything he wrote. I don't know how well that ended up working for everyone, but I do like the song.

Any guitar players out there know the chord progression for this one? I'm a newbie starting to get the hang of things, and of course trying to learn lots of Hip tunes.

It's not on the ultimate tabs site.

Overall I like Use It Up. Especially the tempo swings from beat to fully and completely bad-ass rockin!

For me some Hip albums are better than others. Usually there are the strong and weak tunes for each album. But they're all good in their own right.

In no particular order my IVL favs are

IAGLIFDW
Are You Ready
The Darkest One
Silver Jet
The Dark Canuck
Use It Up
The Dire Wolf

Love Good life, Silver Jet is awesome and the Dark Canuck is fantastic! I saw the IVL shows but as said above, 2009 theater tour really sold me a couple of the songs, Throwing off glass and Dark Canuck were very well done in Calgary, with Gord introducing most of the songs that sent me home with a new depreciation...Not "Are you Ready" though, never liked it. Darkest one also felt like filler to me