Hi everyone. My wife and I went to cinema experience last night ... like others, sound was terrible. Regardless, my thoughts:
DM is a cohesive and thoughtful addition to PJ's discography ... Where I reach for certain runs on other albums, I anticipate, for now, wanting to play this thing from start to finish, which I really like. Where I have heard abundant lyrics delivering central themes on recent albums (looking mostly at Gigaton), I hear the music conveying the message here. like others, I also discern a lyrical arc across the whole album, which is ultimately, to me, one of perseverance and hope despite the daily struggles of our lives, our relationships with others, and perhaps most noticeably (for me), our relationships with ourselves. I don't hear Ed singing to Chris Cornell or other third parties in scared of fear, R/R, won't tell, upper hand, WFS, gotta give, and setting sun ... I hear him singing to himself. In that sense, it feels, to me, like a very personal record and one which resonates deeply for me... despite the hard times and the tumult of our daily lives, there are higher things and concepts we are called to pursue, like understanding and acceptance and love and we can't let our human experiences distract us from that pursuit. I hear a lot of "I won't give up on this endeavor no matter what" in the lyrics here. where Gigaton was, to me, outward and political, DM is self-encouragement and reassurance that we all have self-actualization in us. anyways. that's my take. emotional to hear the band we have all loved for decades delivering in such a powerful and triumphant way. the way several of the songs built and ultimately release with a mike solo literally brought tears to my eyes. mostly like a feeling of acknowledgement that we may be close to the end of the journey but that's ok. finally, with respect to the audiophiles in our midst, the ranks of which I aspire to join, I could not care less about how the drums sounded .... like shit, to be clear, through the cinema speakers.