Lightning Bolt: The Official Album Thread

[VinylGuy]

Pendulum is so so so good. Live is even better.

[stip]

The End just feels like somew words put together to rhyme! Future days is hardly any better but I do quite like Yellow Moon , Swallowed Whole, Pendulum, Sleeping, Getaway me Infallable. The album doesn't feel cohesive from start to finish, it's like the band just put out 12 separate songs that they can muster and released it as an album. Not sure if I'm making complete sense but that's how I feel about it. Overall it is better than their last few albums.

The end does feel that way. It's a nice melody and a better base song than future days, but it's another example of a song that gets by on a powerful performance

[epilogue]

The album doesn't feel cohesive from start to finish, it's like the band just put out 12 separate songs that they can muster and released it as an album.

This is interesting. And while I like Lighting Bolt a fair bit more than a couple other PJ albums, I wonder if this isn't the first time I think you could make a strong case for that sentiment. I think you're right. And it never occurred to me until I read your post.

[VinylGuy]

I felt that the first time i listened to it. I think its the first one that feels that way, like its a collection of songs from different sessions.
Maybe thats the strong point of the album.

[digster]

I think if the songs are strong enough, they carry you through a diverse range of sounds and styles. Something like No Code, for example, feels as all over the place in terms of song styles, but although there is a mood that connects the songs, I think, at least for me, the songs themselves are strong enough that you stick around long enough with repeated listens to hear how everything connects.

I will say that if the songs felt a bit less polished within an inch of their life, if you could, for lack of a better term, hear the room in the recording, it would have gone a long way towards connecting some disparate songs.

[epilogue]

I think if the songs are strong enough, they carry you through a diverse range of sounds and styles. Something like No Code, for example, feels as all over the place in terms of song styles, but although there is a mood that connects the songs, I think, at least for me, the songs themselves are strong enough that you stick around long enough with repeated listens to hear how everything connects.

I don't disagree with your overall post. But I actually do think LB is a collection of good songs. So, I will disagree in this particular case. In general though, I think you're absolutely right.

[LetMeSleep]

I've said it before but the initial sessions yielded a few good songs and was heading in an interesting direction. It's like the band doubted itself and wrote some songs to brief (okay we need an anthem, a couple of straight rockers, a ballad with shite piano) to finish the album. session 2 didn't add much IMO

Spoiler: show

SESSION ONE
Olé
Sleeping By Myself
Pendulum
Sirens
Infallible
Swallowed Whole
Yellow Moon

[Norah]

Ducks away...

Why are you hurling ducks?

[digster]

I think if the songs are strong enough, they carry you through a diverse range of sounds and styles. Something like No Code, for example, feels as all over the place in terms of song styles, but although there is a mood that connects the songs, I think, at least for me, the songs themselves are strong enough that you stick around long enough with repeated listens to hear how everything connects.

I don't disagree with your overall post. But I actually do think LB is a collection of good songs. So, I will disagree in this particular case. In general though, I think you're absolutely right.

Yeah, it's different for everyone. I just think great songs (plus consistent production) can unify a diverse group of songs. I think of some of my favorite records, like the White Album or New adventures In Hi-Fi; they're relatively all over the place, but they've always felt extraordinarily cohesive. Same with something like Binaural; there's punk-influenced songs, folk ditties, experimental stuff, anthems, ballads and a ukulele song and it's always felt of a piece to me.

[darth_vedder]

The album doesn't feel cohesive from start to finish, it's like the band just put out 12 separate songs that they can muster and released it as an album.

This is interesting. And while I like Lighting Bolt a fair bit more than a couple other PJ albums, I wonder if this isn't the first time I think you could make a strong case for that sentiment. I think you're right. And it never occurred to me until I read your post.

Man, that's how I've felt for the last two albums. It just feels like they literally kinda dial it in. Ed does his part. Mike does his, then Jeff, Stone, Matt, BOB, viola, the new PJ album.

The creative studio sessions that have their peaks and valleys that are recorded with the album (Vs -> Riot Act) seem gone on the last two-ish (I kinda like Avocado). Eh, I don't know, maybe I'm just a picky dickshit.

[Leatherhead]

I've said it before but the initial sessions yielded a few good songs and was heading in an interesting direction. It's like the band doubted itself and wrote some songs to brief (okay we need an anthem, a couple of straight rockers, a ballad with shite piano) to finish the album. session 2 didn't add much IMO

Spoiler: show

SESSION ONE
Olé
Sleeping By Myself
Pendulum
Sirens
Infallible
Swallowed Whole
Yellow Moon

So that leaves;

SESSION TWO
Getaway
Mind Your Manners
My Father's Son
Lightning Bolt
Let the Records Play
Future Days

Ehhh, I think I'd easily take session two over session one. MYM, MFS, and LB are definitely the best 3 songs on the album.

[LetMeSleep]

I've said it before but the initial sessions yielded a few good songs and was heading in an interesting direction. It's like the band doubted itself and wrote some songs to brief (okay we need an anthem, a couple of straight rockers, a ballad with shite piano) to finish the album. session 2 didn't add much IMO

Spoiler: show

SESSION ONE
Olé
Sleeping By Myself
Pendulum
Sirens
Infallible
Swallowed Whole
Yellow Moon

So that leaves;

SESSION TWO
Getaway
Mind Your Manners
My Father's Son
Lightning Bolt
Let the Records Play
Future Days

Ehhh, I think I'd easily take session two over session one. MYM, MFS, and LB are definitely the best 3 songs on the album.

Yeah I disagree. Getaway and MFS are the only 2 I'd care to hear ever again.

[BladeRunner]

I think if the songs are strong enough, they carry you through a diverse range of sounds and styles. Something like No Code, for example, feels as all over the place in terms of song styles, but although there is a mood that connects the songs, I think, at least for me, the songs themselves are strong enough that you stick around long enough with repeated listens to hear how everything connects.

I don't disagree with your overall post. But I actually do think LB is a collection of good songs. So, I will disagree in this particular case. In general though, I think you're absolutely right.

Yeah, it's different for everyone. I just think great songs (plus consistent production) can unify a diverse group of songs. I think of some of my favorite records, like the White Album or New adventures In Hi-Fi; they're relatively all over the place, but they've always felt extraordinarily cohesive. Same with something like Binaural; there's punk-influenced songs, folk ditties, experimental stuff, anthems, ballads and a ukulele song and it's always felt of a piece to me.

I know exactly what you mean. And I definetely agree with New Adventures in HiFi! No Code and Binaural are very good examples as well. But LB is opposite to those for me, as I said, just a bunch of good to very good songs put together instead of going for the " mood".

[Birds in Hell]

I've said it before but the initial sessions yielded a few good songs and was heading in an interesting direction. It's like the band doubted itself and wrote some songs to brief (okay we need an anthem, a couple of straight rockers, a ballad with shite piano) to finish the album. session 2 didn't add much IMO

Spoiler: show

SESSION ONE
Olé
Sleeping By Myself
Pendulum
Sirens
Infallible
Swallowed Whole
Yellow Moon

So that leaves;

SESSION TWO
Getaway
Mind Your Manners
My Father's Son
Lightning Bolt
Let the Records Play
Future Days

Ehhh, I think I'd easily take session two over session one. MYM, MFS, and LB are definitely the best 3 songs on the album.

Yeah I disagree. Getaway and MFS are the only 2 I'd care to hear ever again.

I disagree too, I think the material from the second session is on the whole much stronger than the first.

[LetMeSleep]

We are a hard bunch to please and maybe now it is impossible. That second bunch of tracks seems rather uninspired to me. It seems that the first bunch of tracks could have made a very different album for them but they second guessed and went away to write some PJ songs, specifically rockers.

Even if I don't like the results, I'd like the band to go out on a limb and release something daring. Even if it didn't break new musical ground (and c'mon this is PJ) maybe ia slight deviation for them.

[stip]

Overall I like what session 1 did a bit more, but my two favorite tracks on the album came from session 2.

From top to bottom I still, several years out, think that L-Bolt is a very strong set of songs that suffer from an unfortunately sterile production. It's like the polar opposite of Riot Act--a comparatively mediocre set of songs that benefited from excellent production.

[epilogue]

Overall I like what session 1 did a bit more, but my two favorite tracks on the album came from session 2.

From top to bottom I still, several years out, think that L-Bolt is a very strong set of songs that suffer from an unfortunately sterile production. It's like the polar opposite of Riot Act--a comparatively mediocre set of songs that benefited from excellent production.

You watch it, pal!

[Leatherhead]

Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one that prefers modern day PJ to rock anymore. To me, Ed's gravely voice seems best nowadays when he's not trying to sing too much and doesn't have the extra time to add lots of silly extra sounds.

[stip]

Ed's lowerish register is still pretty excellent. Sirens is excellent (especially the first half), and Mind Your Manners is how every fast pearl jam song should sound going forward. It's the higher notes that seem to get him in trouble.



Eddie's delivery at the start of Yellow Moon, where he decides to hold a note rather than practice his vowels, also seems to indicate that he can still do it when he wants to--certainly in the studio.

[epilogue]

I could listen to nothing but Yellow Moon for a good long while.