Love, Loss, Hope, Repeat

And I can see you fly away

Admittedly not my favorite album from them, but it's still full of good jams that would become live staples. Fun fact, their song Learn to Fly had Katy Perry featured in their music video for some reason.
Now, I don't favor this album for a few reasons:
1. This is the album that caused Carbon Leaf to lose two of their band members. Scott Milstead their drummer, who left for reasons I'm not quite sure of (but I heard it's not very pretty) and Jordan Medas their bassist for the past few records would depart after this record and into the recording for their following one. As a result, you can sort of hear the discontent in the music, especially with how straightforward and through the motions it all feels.

2. The mixing on this record is really flat, which is odd for Carbon Leaf because they usually knock it out of the park in that sense. I have a feeling tensions with the record label and within the band space contributed to this record feeling a bit lifeless compared to what came before.

all that being said, these songs sound much better in live settings, and have earned their place as fan favorites for that reason. "Comfort" and "Block of Wood" and "The War Was in Color" are some of the album's most treasured songs, and it's always great when Barry and co. bust these tunes out for the crowd. The band would later go on to re-record this record and re-order the songs, uplifting the whole experience and rejuvenating the songs that desperately needed new life breathed into them.

and wow didn't realize this album was turning 20 this year, that's crazy.