i think they really fell off when they lost sarah jaffe on guitar. not that they suck or anything. that first album is just sooooo great!

Yeah, night life is their weakest though I do dig it -- sarah's guitar style is so unique and awesome, those little spindly skeleton riffs. You always hear plenty of bands play little riffs like hers in a verse or something, but she'd make whole songs around them. Really brilliant guitar player. I know they had a man in the band for a while playing guitar, wonder what happened there..

Other Animals Are #1 is still one of my favorite albums ever and last night, my friends were all fried on shroomies and mephedrone, and were staring at my At Crystal Palace sleeve for a good hour.

I suppose they made the guitar style of Sarah Jaffe work, but I still think they got so much better after she left and Jenny played guitar with all ten fingers. "Cruising" still sounds monstrous, and Nightlife is still their strongest by a mile IMO.

I think one thing about Night Life is that all the songs sound distinct; they definitely "matured" their sound in the fullest sense of the word. I think there was definitely a lot more going on, and it takes a few listens to really get into. Still, the immaturity/skeletal/somewhat broken sound of their first 2 albums is what really got me into the band. I think they got better, technically, but there was just something about those first 2 albums -- some sense of mystery, a sense of immaturity, etc. that kinda makes me keep reaching for those instead. For a lack of a better example, their first 2 albums are Surfer Rosa, Nightlife is their Trompe Le Monde.

I think Crystal Palace is my favorite, because it is a lot more mature compared to the first album, with some really mean distorted bass riffs and a bit more complexity, but it still has those nasty high pitched riffs.