Lets Actually Listen to the Album: Lightning Bolt

[stip]

I always wanted to get that artwork as a poster.

[Strat]

While Yellow Moon is one of my favorite latter day pj songs, it is severely dragged down by Mikes super cheesy guitar solos. And i say that as a mccready super fan and impersonator.

Stone would have done the song better justice with his more unique approach to guitar leads.

[digster]

Is swallowed whole the song that suffered the most from the production on the record - maybe? It never quite came into its own live, if I recall, so maybe it's not just the production - but it has that Into the Wild vibe that i like, I am a fan of the lyrics, and I like what everyone is playing. But it's meant to be an organic sounding song and the acoustic guitars sound so processed, and Eddie's voice is too front and center here when it needs to be lost in the music. And there also needs to be a bit more variety in the performance - it is a bit flattened out - even the parts that have lift. Mike's solo is fun, not his most memorable work. The transition into the final verse does work well - it is exciting - and I love the quiet ending, which comes out of nowhere.


I think there's a good song here that they just didn't find a way to capture in full

Swallowed whole is weird because I love the soaring verses but then the chorus brings all that tumblingn down. Shouldn’t the chorus soar as well?

Swallowed Whole has the problem of many latter-era PJ songs, in that they like someone stitched together their separate sections in ProTools without any consideration as to whether those parts actually work together. I don't know if that's actually what happened here, but it gives off that impression. It's improved live; they're playing it together, so they have to make it work somehow, but that chorus just doesn't make any sense in relation to the verse.

Anyways, I did listen to this record recently; there's enough inspired songwriting and choices to put it above Backspacer, along with some baffling choices. Yellow Moon sounds so antiseptic; it's the biggest missed opportunity on the record, because it's a solid song, with a good vocal and lyric. When it comes to Future Days, the less said the better. I think my favorite song on the record is actually Mind Your Manners, which I never would have thought would be the case on first listen (although like most everything else here, I can find live takes of that song that are far preferable).

[LetMeSleep]

I can't bring myself to listen to this album because of MYM, LB, LTRP and FD. So I listened to the original sessions from 2011:

Olé
Sleeping By Myself
Pendulum
Sirens
Infallible
Swallowed Whole
Yellow Moon

Ole had some room and air in the mix. Not a great song but a good enough performance with enough energy to make it worthwhile.

SBM is fine but I still maintain that it shouldn't have been on an album, maybe a single or just a holiday single. Or maybe a soundtrack of some Rom-Com. This song and mix are fine.

The trouble starts with Pendulum. Way too tight/close mic'd with no room to breathe. The percussion needs to be free-er, less produced and slightly looser. And Ed's mic technique on Easy left me a long time ago still annoys me. He doesn't use that mic well enough.

Where the following songs suffer is a mixture of production choices made by other posters (parts glued together in ProTools, Ed's mic, instruments sound isolated and/or sound like different rooms). Sirens passes the test of at least growing and evolving as the song goes. SWhole seems to cut itself down when ever it gains momentum. When Matt finally hits a groove the song just stumbles to a plod.

Listening to these tracks as a group makes it obvious that the band could easily have gone in a different direction but instead we get Getaway, MYM, MFS, LB, LTRP and FD. Clearly they were trying to get some traditional PJ songs on the record, get the rawk on there. And I believe that writing to a brief is not something that PJ do well.

Another wish of mine for this album and most PJ albums is for Matt to take an interest in the snares used. Listen to Binaural and to Superunknown and Matt had a great instinctive ear for a snare drum. Since Binaural he seems to have just rocked up to each session with one kit.

[WaitingForBluey]

I'm willing to look past this album's missteps. There's more good on here than people give it credit for. I usually cut out Getaway, MYM and FD. My Father's Son to Yellow Moon usually works for me (with the occasional Sirens skip if I'm not in the mood for it.)

I still blame B'OB more than the band for the biggest problems with the album.

[Royalearth]

Not a big fan of the B.O.B. sound on this record (nor on Backspacer) nor his influence on the band.

MYM sounds dull and tiring.

I cringe at the the guitar and solo parts by Mike on Sirens each time. It's such a cheese-fest. However I love Ed's lyrics/vocals.

I like the less standard PJ songs like Infallible and Pendulum.

Sleeping By Myself has that sound of cheap Christmas cover songs you find buried in the Itunes store.

Let The Records Play is such a throwaway, lyrically.

Hardly listen to this album.

[Homeboyd]

I'm pretty easy to please as these things go but Lightning Bolt is, bar far, their worst album to my ears. I can't even begin to listen to any song on the second half of the album. The song lightning Bolt is fun live, and Sirens is okay live, but the rest doesn't click at all with me.

[WaitingForBluey]

...

[WaitingForBluey]

I think of it in terms of "can I listen to the entire album without wanting to skip a track"?

Ten to Riot Act were complete albums. I didn't (or don't) love everything, especially at first, but I would rarely skip specific tracks.

Starting with S/T, that started to change:
S/T - Gone
Backspace- The Fixer, Just Breathe, Unthought Known, Force of Nature, The End
Lightning Bolt - Getaway, MYM, Future Days

BS takes the cake, that's half the album I want to skip! Compared to that, LB is a classic

[Ms Harmless]

I still "Sirens"

[Leatherhead]

My Father's Son 4.5/5
Mind Your Manners 4/5
Lightning Bolt 3.75/5
Pendulum 3.5/5
Sirens 3.25/5
Yellow Moon 3/5
Getaway 2.75/5
Swallowed Whole 2.5/5
Infallible 2.5/5
Sleeping by Myself 2.25/5
Let the Records Play 2/5
Future Days 2/5

[Mike]

What is going on with the keyboard in the beginning of Future Days? Are some chords totally out of place? The one at 0:12 especially sounds totally discordant. The piano intro might be the worst thing in Pearl Jams whole discography.

[Hypnos]

Im going to make a stupid question, but is there a way to remix this album? To make it more dirty and less sterile?

[Leatherhead]

Im going to make a stupid question, but is there a way to remix this album? To make it more dirty and less sterile?

A live version. But some of these songs they've really nailed live. I replaced the album with a live version for a while, but now I hardly even try.

[reconstruction_ seeds]

1-6 are good to very good and maybe most pj fans know it. 7 is a fan favorite. Some hate 8 but an equal amount seem to love it. 10 is catchy as hell and good. 11 seems to mostly be a fan favorite. 12 is a good song with production flaws that could at least be pulled off well live.

[PHATJ]

1-6 are good to very good and maybe most pj fans know it. 7 is a fan favorite. Some hate 8 but an equal amount seem to love it. 10 is catchy as hell and good. 11 seems to mostly be a fan favorite. 12 is a good song with production flaws that could at least be pulled off well live.

[RockPusher]

What is going on with the keyboard in the beginning of Future Days? Are some chords totally out of place? The one at 0:12 especially sounds totally discordant. The piano intro might be the worst thing in Pearl Jams whole discography.

That’s BoB’s way of making things interesting/adding a dark element. It’s way less authentic than just leaving things alone more instead of sterilizing until he needs to add something back.

[VinylGuy]

I havent listened to LB in a while. I only listened to Infallible a few days ago, after listening to Tremor Christ. And jesus, the production is so fucking awful. So poppy and pristine, so clean. Ed's voice so upfront is almost karaoke.

[stip]

it is a good song. such a shame

[VinylGuy]

I wish we got what the band intended and not the Bob version of it. With comments like Jeff made recently, im sure they were trying something different.