∆ - "Hunger of the Pine"

[Devin]

alt-J (∆) have recently announced that they will be releasing their sophomore effort, This Is All Yours, on September 22nd. The lead single should be announced very soon.

Album cover:


Track listing:
1. "Intro"
2. "Arrival In Nara"
3. "Nara"
4. "Every Other Freckle"
5. "Left Hand Free"
6. "Garden Of England"
7. "Choice Kingdom"
8. "Hunger Of The Pine"
9. "Warm Foothills"
10. "The Gospel Of John Hurt"
11. "Pusher"
12. "Bloodflood Pt II"
13. "Leaving Nara"

[Chuckles, The Silly Piggy]

I think they could hit top 10 with their lead single. Also, Concept album!!

[jvandyck87]

Super pumped. I was hoping they might push one more off An Awesome Wave...I was especially hoping for "Dissolve Me".

[Deleted]

yesss

[Superundercover]

These guys have some interesting stuff.

[Best In The World]

Are they going to collaborate with Prince any time soon?

[Web]

alt-J is pretty hit or miss for me. I liked their three singles but they burned on me pretty fast. Favorite is Tesselate from the first album. Curious to see what their new material sounds like.

[American Idiot]

I'm probably the only person on this forum that can't stand them. I just don't see the appeal at all.

[Deleted]

Jun 11, 2014 19:22:11 GMT -5 American Idiot said:

I'm probably the only person on this forum that can't stand them. I just don't see the appeal at all.

plenty of people do, there was a lot of hate in that "favorites and least favorites top 10s of 2013" thread

[jvandyck87]

I get why they're a polarizing band. The dude's voice is weird and nasal sounding. That said I think the arrangements, the instrumentation, and especially the percussion are very impressive. The rhythms they build with all the percussive elements they layer really draw me to them. And while his voice is a bit grating, the vocal arrangements with the stacks of harmonies and then the really soulful low parts...that contrast makes them really dynamic. I'm not a "Breezeblocks" supporter, but these elements make "Intro", "Tesselate", and "Dissolve Me" especially cool.

[@DiegoMarcondes_]

I've read the lead single is going to be "Hunger of the Pine", and which samples "4x4" by Miley Cyrus :o

strange.

[bluestar4]

Oh god, these guys again. Generally, if I don't like a band/artist on alternative, it's because they're too poppy. This band I just don't like.

[Shadows in the Dark]

Heh, I'm actually looking forward to hearing more stuff from these guys. The singer's voice may be nasally, but it's a heck of a lot better than the whiny vocals from many of the other indie artists charting on the format.

[Devin]

Alt-J just announced that "Hunger of the Pine" will be released on June 18th. Excite!

[Kurt]

Listen: n.pr/1ng67sz

[Pipa]

That was boring and I want my 5 minutes back.

[Web]

It doesn't really go anywhere, I was waiting for something else more interesting to happen (the layering of sounds in the first album was one of its best qualities) and nothing really did. I do think it was the best pronounced alt-J song (in that I could understand most of the lyrics first listen), if that counts for anything. Doesn't really get my hopes up for the album though.

[Chuckles, The Silly Piggy]

Can this just be a promotional single and not the first. Fuck, please, I want this album to do well, but this won't even go top 40 Alt.

[Green Baron]

do the vocals still sound like Adam Sandler

[Deleted]

i like the song but it's not for radio

[hc]

Agree with everyone else. They could survive with a weird lead single and it would do fine, but this is weird and also uninteresting.

[jvandyck87]

I actually really like it (apart from the ending in French which just doesn't conceptually make any sense to me, nor does it help the song climax in a dynamic sense). But other than that, I will wildly disagree with most posters here and call the song very interesting beg to differ by saying it goes a lot of different places. I don't know about it as a successful radio single as novaleks said, but how about a song that actually risks being really different from what radio is looking for for a change? They're one of the very few bands to even try recently, and for that I respect them immensely.

[No Brake$]

"Hey, let's make a name no can pronounce, they'll just say...ALt-J!!! So sophisticated"


This is awful. Alt-J had a few interesting but not really listenable songs last album, we get it, you are cooler than all of us Alt-J.

[Phanarchist]

AllAccess has this listed for Adds on 5/12... I guess going for a re-entry.

[H.]

Good. Unlike most people, I like this one.

[Web]

Hated this after two or three listens, but this has become one of my favorites on the album. The swirling, epic, slow build of this song is fantastic. Sadly, I don't see it doing much on radio, especially if Every Other Freckle bombed the way it did. I still don't really know if this was just a promo track, or that it was meant to be the lead single and then they switched to Left Hand Free after the initial bad reception it got. 

This album wasn't filled with many radio tracks, but I still love songs like Pusher and The Gospel of John Hurt. I've found everything that alt-J releases tends to slowly grow on me until it reaches a critical point where I love it.

[Shadows in the Dark]

This was probably the best choice left on the album (although I'll wonder if radio will edit out the Miley Cyrus sample). That said, given the underperformance of "Every Other Freckle", I'd expect a Top 30 peak for this and a run similar to "Fitzpleasure".

And I agree with Web, not too many single-friendly songs on the album, other than the three chosen.

[shakermaker]

Awesome. I didn't think this was all that radio-friendly at first (it builds really slowly, and the closest thing it has to a hook is the Miley Cyrus sample) but compared to the rest of the album this seems like a logical choice for a single. Expecting a top 30-40 peak, hopefully higher.

[pancakes]

"Pusher" as a single, please.

[Daryl the Beryl]

Top 50 on Alternative:

61 49 ALT-J Hunger Of The Pine 147 116 31 0.263