Southern Weather by The Almost

Southern Weather, the 2007 debut from the Almost, began as a way for Underoath's drummer and co-vocalist Aaron Gillespie to fill some dead time. In October 2005 he was in New York, stuck in a gap of several weeks between laying down drums for Define the Great Line and singing on it, and he got the itch to write plain, direct rock songs. His manager found him a studio, and by that night two demos were up on Myspace.

The album itself was cut at Compound Recording in Seattle with Aaron Sprinkle, a producer Gillespie had never met but admired for his work with Pedro the Lion, after an A&R rep at Tooth & Nail steered him that way. Gillespie plays drums, guitar and bass and sings lead, and the songs swerve away from his day job toward emo with an alternative-rock shine: bright guitars, earnest yelps, hooks built for shouting along. "Say This Sooner" is the one rock radio grabbed.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.