[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by Severian

I've largely given up on having high expectations for comeback records at this point. So many bands have done it in recent years, and for every success, there have been countless so-so, mediocre, or just downright shitty "return" albums.

The gold standard when it comes to these is Portishead's Third. Nobody expected that group to even equal their '90s material, but by shooting off in a completely different direction, they actually kicked the shit out of their first two albums, and made something that stands on its own merit, almost completely independent from the band's legacy up to that point.
Tomorrow's Harvest and SYRO were also success stories, and so was m b v (to a lesser extent). But for all of these there have been dozens of middle of the road "comeback" albums that didn't warrant being made.

This is what made No Cities To Love so fucking fantastic. It didn't fail. It wildly succeeded