10th album rumors and speculation

[stupidmop]

This movie sounds pretty dark, so I'm excited to see what kind of songs ed comes up with.

[Farmer John]

hey remember that Eat Pray Love song? neither do I.

Quite.

If they release a new Ed album and there's no new PJ for months I'm done.

We're not all that far, at this point, from playing games like "If Pearl Jam released exactly the record YOU want them to make right now, what kinds of things would the reviews say?" and "If you could kiss any member of Pearl Jam, how far would you run in the other direction?"

Speculative reviews could be fun as a thread to pass the time.

3,2,1
Not the kind of song I have come to associate with Jeff. This is a fast, heavy number, but it is dirty, rather than glossy. Think Comatose or Habit (which, other than the outro, was what I was reminded of a bit more), not Supersonic. Very loud, very aggressive. Overall the sound is really pretty cool. The guitar equivalent of tires tearing up a muddy field is what I pictured (actually, imagine if You Are was sped up quite a bit). The chorus is a bit slower, and really churns in place---slow, but like it is revving up to take off again. There is a cool baseline driving the whole thing, thick and dirty. No bridge to speak of (or at least it is not so differentiated from the rest of the song that I was aware it was a bridge), but a longish outro with a pretty blistering mike solo. Fast playing, no outro jam like Habit (reminded me of an extended Comatose solo). Jeff isn’t actually singing on the verses (no one is) but he does on the chorus, which does have the lyric cold concession repeated each chorus, alongside a few other ‘adjective/noun couplets’. ‘ It’s a cold concession, it’s a bitter pill... (there were 4 or 5 phrases and then a countdown 5,4,3,2,1’ before exploding back into the verses. Not sure if this will be political or not--the chorus seemed ambiguous enough that it could go either way. I guess we’ll see how the verses are written. I’m really excited for this one. Quite possibly the thing I enjoyed the most. Granted some people don’t love how eddie sings the aggressive songs these days, but I think this is where he may be at his best right now, and with a good performance I picture this being great.


Believed In
Mid temp acoustic number with clean accents. Not that it sounds like wishlist (it doesn’t) but the way in which the guitar compliments sound so much brighter than the rest of the song. On one listen it felt like it was reaching for some complicated stuff--the song felt let down (believed in, rather than believe in), and the music was a little minor key, but leaving open the possibility that the singer’s faith can return. That came more in the way the song was sung (eddie sounded really good with some nice wordless soaring moments and not breathy) and the musical accents and solos, which were about losing faith. Seems like the kind of political song Ed would have written given the last few years. It didn’t sound like an album opener, but it conceptually seemed like it could be a bridge between backspacer and the album. Two nice little solos between verses. I wonder if stone and mike each played one. One had a chiming, almost U2 feel to it (the second one), and the first was a bit scruffier--almost like it was trying to climb out of a darker place of the course of the two songs. Really cool pivot during the bridge--afterwards the melody is basically the same but it doesn’t feel as dragged down--like they started playing the same part in a major key (if I’m using that properly). One of the more clever songs they’ve written in a while. If I am Mine was a little cleaner and they decided to build the second half of the song around the feelings in Mike’s solo you’d get something like this--it ends with a slow ‘pattern’ that sounds really nice.



Mercury/Transience
I think it makes sense to talk about these two songs together. It’s like PJ decided to release Light Years AND puzzles and games on the same album, or matt’s version of the Fixer and eddie’s fixed version. Both songs are built around the same fractured, sideways sounding riff (that’s the best I can do to describe it--like you were playing an electric guitar with a tuning fork). Very cool songs.

Mercury turns that riff into a very fast, very relentless beast of a song. Imagine that breakferall or GSMF or Brain of J just started with the drums and then the guitar kicked in, instead of vice verse. Couldn’t really make out what eddie was snarling here (sounded placeholder--like early live versions of Lukin). No bridge. Instead the song grinds to a halt, Eddie whispers some stuff (couldn’t make it out) and then it tears off again. Badass solo that does sound like the supersonic bridge a bit, but accelerated. This and 3,2,1 would make a pretty fantastic 1-2 album opener if they wanted to go the aggressive route.

This was pretty quick. Barely over 2 minutes

If there was a Pink Floydish song on the record Transience is it. They took the Mercury riff and slowed it down, so the main riff leaves a lot of wide open spaces for the other guitar to sort of wrap itself around. Certainly more atmosphere here than anything on Backspacer (at least atmosphere in the traditional sense). There is a hushed quality to a lot of this (think the start of inside job--the opening two-three minutes). No solo to speak of. More of a soundscape in that regard. There is a bit of a slow jam at the end--not a solo as much as the two guitars are kind of weaving around each other, playing complementary parts. This song has a lot of potential, but Ed did sound a little breathy /overannunciated here, and the vocal melody felt underdeveloped.


This combo would be a great way to open/close a record--echoes of master/slave.

The Gift
A matt song. a mid tempo number that is almost catchy until Matt decides he would rather do his off kilter drumming which takes you just out of the song enough to make it vaguely unbalancing. There are lots of surprises in this one and some pretty interesting guitar interactions between stone and mike (almost like some odd call and response moments), I would have liked a smoother song to offset it. It’s all a little to disjointed for me. I bet everyone who isn’t me loves it. I didn’t pay attention to the lyrics. It’s a matt song so I’m sure I would have hated them if I had. Jeff sounds really good here. He’s fairly prominent in all these mixes, as is Matt.



Jumbled
This is pretty, a wobbly guitar sound that is reined in by a nice thick tone and further enhanced by a very prominent piano line. it’s very peaceful--almost like a lullaby, except meatier, and it has that odder time signature. Actually, you know what. This may reflect how the stuff I watch/listen to with my daughter has affected my musical tastes, but if the Sesame Street song Sing was performed while on gentle acid you might get something like this.



Alford Pleas
I’m not sure I’d call this one an instant classic, but it does sound like an Ed song, or at least the style I associate with him (although I guess it isn’t or it would have lyrics already). It starts out like the faster part of Unthought Known with some electric humming in the back that turns into a siren guitar that I liked. the beginning is fairly conventional (I don’t mean that in a bad way though), although it is catchy. About a minute in though the song totally changes direction, and becomes a bit more spacier (a little too abrupt for my tastes), or at least as much like that as Pearl Jam gets. It slows down, gets claustrophobic and a little creepy, and then ends going back to the earlier themes. it feels like the most collaborative of all the songs on here--elements of a few different people’s signature styles, (ed and Jeff, anyway). The quality here is a bit muted compared to the other songs though. No words yet from Ed, although it really sounds like they wrote this song to be a musical platform for the WM3 story. I wonder if they want to let that guy who collaborated with Ed on Army Reserve do some writing for it.

[stip]

This movie sounds pretty dark, so I'm excited to see what kind of songs ed comes up with.

not anticipating a whole record of Better Days?

[KurtLeon]

ALFORD PLEAAASSSSS

[McParadigm]

hey remember that Eat Pray Love song? neither do I.

Quite.

If they release a new Ed album and there's no new PJ for months I'm done.

We're not all that far, at this point, from playing games like "If Pearl Jam released exactly the record YOU want them to make right now, what kinds of things would the reviews say?" and "If you could kiss any member of Pearl Jam, how far would you run in the other direction?"

Speculative reviews could be fun as a thread to pass the time.

I'm good at finding ways to direct wandering minds. It's one of the two primary skills I picked up as a teacher.

The other?

Spoiler: show

Murder.

[stip]

If you had the students make your masks I will be very impressed.

[McParadigm]

If you had the students make your masks I will be very impressed.

There was no time for mask-making in Mr. McDiggum's seventh grade Vinification course, sadly.

[stupidmop]

This movie sounds pretty dark, so I'm excited to see what kind of songs ed comes up with.

not anticipating a whole record of Better Days?

Well if a movie about crime syndicates, revenge and murder can be turned into songs about waves, trees, souls and 'Singing, "Ah-la-ah-ah, ah-la-ah-ahs' I wouldn't put it past present day hippie dippy Eddie Vedder.

....but I find it unlikely

[stip]

If you had the students make your masks I will be very impressed.

There was no time for mask-making in Mr. McDiggum's seventh grade Vinification course, sadly.

damn this high stakes testing!

[EJ]

hey remember that Eat Pray Love song? neither do I.

lol

and it's not a terirble tune. I hear the movie was horrible though

I just re-listened to it. I like it. Ed sounds great


I remember when people were loving it when they thought it was a leaked Riot Act B side (or posisbly older song with jack irons) then found out it was a new Vedder solo and didnt like it anymore.

I liked and still like Better Days. The movie, however, was god-awful.

[harmless]

hey remember that Eat Pray Love song? neither do I.

Quite.

If they release a new Ed album and there's no new PJ for months I'm done.

We're not all that far, at this point, from playing games like "If Pearl Jam released exactly the record YOU want them to make right now, what kinds of things would the reviews say?" and "If you could kiss any member of Pearl Jam, how far would you run in the other direction?"

Speculative reviews could be fun as a thread to pass the time.

3,2,1
Not the kind of song I have come to associate with Jeff. This is a fast, heavy number, but it is dirty, rather than glossy. Think Comatose or Habit (which, other than the outro, was what I was reminded of a bit more), not Supersonic. Very loud, very aggressive. Overall the sound is really pretty cool. The guitar equivalent of tires tearing up a muddy field is what I pictured (actually, imagine if You Are was sped up quite a bit). The chorus is a bit slower, and really churns in place---slow, but like it is revving up to take off again. There is a cool baseline driving the whole thing, thick and dirty. No bridge to speak of (or at least it is not so differentiated from the rest of the song that I was aware it was a bridge), but a longish outro with a pretty blistering mike solo. Fast playing, no outro jam like Habit (reminded me of an extended Comatose solo). Jeff isn’t actually singing on the verses (no one is) but he does on the chorus, which does have the lyric cold concession repeated each chorus, alongside a few other ‘adjective/noun couplets’. ‘ It’s a cold concession, it’s a bitter pill... (there were 4 or 5 phrases and then a countdown 5,4,3,2,1’ before exploding back into the verses. Not sure if this will be political or not--the chorus seemed ambiguous enough that it could go either way. I guess we’ll see how the verses are written. I’m really excited for this one. Quite possibly the thing I enjoyed the most. Granted some people don’t love how eddie sings the aggressive songs these days, but I think this is where he may be at his best right now, and with a good performance I picture this being great.


Believed In
Mid temp acoustic number with clean accents. Not that it sounds like wishlist (it doesn’t) but the way in which the guitar compliments sound so much brighter than the rest of the song. On one listen it felt like it was reaching for some complicated stuff--the song felt let down (believed in, rather than believe in), and the music was a little minor key, but leaving open the possibility that the singer’s faith can return. That came more in the way the song was sung (eddie sounded really good with some nice wordless soaring moments and not breathy) and the musical accents and solos, which were about losing faith. Seems like the kind of political song Ed would have written given the last few years. It didn’t sound like an album opener, but it conceptually seemed like it could be a bridge between backspacer and the album. Two nice little solos between verses. I wonder if stone and mike each played one. One had a chiming, almost U2 feel to it (the second one), and the first was a bit scruffier--almost like it was trying to climb out of a darker place of the course of the two songs. Really cool pivot during the bridge--afterwards the melody is basically the same but it doesn’t feel as dragged down--like they started playing the same part in a major key (if I’m using that properly). One of the more clever songs they’ve written in a while. If I am Mine was a little cleaner and they decided to build the second half of the song around the feelings in Mike’s solo you’d get something like this--it ends with a slow ‘pattern’ that sounds really nice.



Mercury/Transience
I think it makes sense to talk about these two songs together. It’s like PJ decided to release Light Years AND puzzles and games on the same album, or matt’s version of the Fixer and eddie’s fixed version. Both songs are built around the same fractured, sideways sounding riff (that’s the best I can do to describe it--like you were playing an electric guitar with a tuning fork). Very cool songs.

Mercury turns that riff into a very fast, very relentless beast of a song. Imagine that breakferall or GSMF or Brain of J just started with the drums and then the guitar kicked in, instead of vice verse. Couldn’t really make out what eddie was snarling here (sounded placeholder--like early live versions of Lukin). No bridge. Instead the song grinds to a halt, Eddie whispers some stuff (couldn’t make it out) and then it tears off again. Badass solo that does sound like the supersonic bridge a bit, but accelerated. This and 3,2,1 would make a pretty fantastic 1-2 album opener if they wanted to go the aggressive route.

This was pretty quick. Barely over 2 minutes

If there was a Pink Floydish song on the record Transience is it. They took the Mercury riff and slowed it down, so the main riff leaves a lot of wide open spaces for the other guitar to sort of wrap itself around. Certainly more atmosphere here than anything on Backspacer (at least atmosphere in the traditional sense). There is a hushed quality to a lot of this (think the start of inside job--the opening two-three minutes). No solo to speak of. More of a soundscape in that regard. There is a bit of a slow jam at the end--not a solo as much as the two guitars are kind of weaving around each other, playing complementary parts. This song has a lot of potential, but Ed did sound a little breathy /overannunciated here, and the vocal melody felt underdeveloped.


This combo would be a great way to open/close a record--echoes of master/slave.

The Gift
A matt song. a mid tempo number that is almost catchy until Matt decides he would rather do his off kilter drumming which takes you just out of the song enough to make it vaguely unbalancing. There are lots of surprises in this one and some pretty interesting guitar interactions between stone and mike (almost like some odd call and response moments), I would have liked a smoother song to offset it. It’s all a little to disjointed for me. I bet everyone who isn’t me loves it. I didn’t pay attention to the lyrics. It’s a matt song so I’m sure I would have hated them if I had. Jeff sounds really good here. He’s fairly prominent in all these mixes, as is Matt.



Jumbled
This is pretty, a wobbly guitar sound that is reined in by a nice thick tone and further enhanced by a very prominent piano line. it’s very peaceful--almost like a lullaby, except meatier, and it has that odder time signature. Actually, you know what. This may reflect how the stuff I watch/listen to with my daughter has affected my musical tastes, but if the Sesame Street song Sing was performed while on gentle acid you might get something like this.



Alford Pleas
I’m not sure I’d call this one an instant classic, but it does sound like an Ed song, or at least the style I associate with him (although I guess it isn’t or it would have lyrics already). It starts out like the faster part of Unthought Known with some electric humming in the back that turns into a siren guitar that I liked. the beginning is fairly conventional (I don’t mean that in a bad way though), although it is catchy. About a minute in though the song totally changes direction, and becomes a bit more spacier (a little too abrupt for my tastes), or at least as much like that as Pearl Jam gets. It slows down, gets claustrophobic and a little creepy, and then ends going back to the earlier themes. it feels like the most collaborative of all the songs on here--elements of a few different people’s signature styles, (ed and Jeff, anyway). The quality here is a bit muted compared to the other songs though. No words yet from Ed, although it really sounds like they wrote this song to be a musical platform for the WM3 story. I wonder if they want to let that guy who collaborated with Ed on Army Reserve do some writing for it.

I'd managed to forget that...

[BurtReynolds]

hey remember that Eat Pray Love song? neither do I.

lol

and it's not a terirble tune. I hear the movie was horrible though

I just re-listened to it. I like it. Ed sounds great


I remember when people were loving it when they thought it was a leaked Riot Act B side (or posisbly older song with jack irons) then found out it was a new Vedder solo and didnt like it anymore.

yeah, it went hot to cold pretty quick around these parts

I dont have any opinion of it at all since I honestly can't remember it. I think I listened to it twice.
it had horns or something in it, right?

[VinylGuy]

its actually a great song.

[tommymtcom]

its actually a great song.

Seriously. Better Days is really good. I prefer it to anything off of Backspacer.

[stip]

it was a very pretty song with some nice moments but (ironically enough) little soul to hold it together. It's a song I should love but don't.

[Dr. Van Nostrand]

hey remember that Eat Pray Love song? neither do I.

Quite.

If they release a new Ed album and there's no new PJ for months I'm done.

We're not all that far, at this point, from playing games like "If Pearl Jam released exactly the record YOU want them to make right now, what kinds of things would the reviews say?" and "If you could kiss any member of Pearl Jam, how far would you run in the other direction?"

Speculative reviews could be fun as a thread to pass the time.

3,2,1
Not the kind of song I have come to associate with Jeff. This is a fast, heavy number, but it is dirty, rather than glossy. Think Comatose or Habit (which, other than the outro, was what I was reminded of a bit more), not Supersonic. Very loud, very aggressive. Overall the sound is really pretty cool. The guitar equivalent of tires tearing up a muddy field is what I pictured (actually, imagine if You Are was sped up quite a bit). The chorus is a bit slower, and really churns in place---slow, but like it is revving up to take off again. There is a cool baseline driving the whole thing, thick and dirty. No bridge to speak of (or at least it is not so differentiated from the rest of the song that I was aware it was a bridge), but a longish outro with a pretty blistering mike solo. Fast playing, no outro jam like Habit (reminded me of an extended Comatose solo). Jeff isn’t actually singing on the verses (no one is) but he does on the chorus, which does have the lyric cold concession repeated each chorus, alongside a few other ‘adjective/noun couplets’. ‘ It’s a cold concession, it’s a bitter pill... (there were 4 or 5 phrases and then a countdown 5,4,3,2,1’ before exploding back into the verses. Not sure if this will be political or not--the chorus seemed ambiguous enough that it could go either way. I guess we’ll see how the verses are written. I’m really excited for this one. Quite possibly the thing I enjoyed the most. Granted some people don’t love how eddie sings the aggressive songs these days, but I think this is where he may be at his best right now, and with a good performance I picture this being great.


Believed In
Mid temp acoustic number with clean accents. Not that it sounds like wishlist (it doesn’t) but the way in which the guitar compliments sound so much brighter than the rest of the song. On one listen it felt like it was reaching for some complicated stuff--the song felt let down (believed in, rather than believe in), and the music was a little minor key, but leaving open the possibility that the singer’s faith can return. That came more in the way the song was sung (eddie sounded really good with some nice wordless soaring moments and not breathy) and the musical accents and solos, which were about losing faith. Seems like the kind of political song Ed would have written given the last few years. It didn’t sound like an album opener, but it conceptually seemed like it could be a bridge between backspacer and the album. Two nice little solos between verses. I wonder if stone and mike each played one. One had a chiming, almost U2 feel to it (the second one), and the first was a bit scruffier--almost like it was trying to climb out of a darker place of the course of the two songs. Really cool pivot during the bridge--afterwards the melody is basically the same but it doesn’t feel as dragged down--like they started playing the same part in a major key (if I’m using that properly). One of the more clever songs they’ve written in a while. If I am Mine was a little cleaner and they decided to build the second half of the song around the feelings in Mike’s solo you’d get something like this--it ends with a slow ‘pattern’ that sounds really nice.



Mercury/Transience
I think it makes sense to talk about these two songs together. It’s like PJ decided to release Light Years AND puzzles and games on the same album, or matt’s version of the Fixer and eddie’s fixed version. Both songs are built around the same fractured, sideways sounding riff (that’s the best I can do to describe it--like you were playing an electric guitar with a tuning fork). Very cool songs.

Mercury turns that riff into a very fast, very relentless beast of a song. Imagine that breakferall or GSMF or Brain of J just started with the drums and then the guitar kicked in, instead of vice verse. Couldn’t really make out what eddie was snarling here (sounded placeholder--like early live versions of Lukin). No bridge. Instead the song grinds to a halt, Eddie whispers some stuff (couldn’t make it out) and then it tears off again. Badass solo that does sound like the supersonic bridge a bit, but accelerated. This and 3,2,1 would make a pretty fantastic 1-2 album opener if they wanted to go the aggressive route.

This was pretty quick. Barely over 2 minutes

If there was a Pink Floydish song on the record Transience is it. They took the Mercury riff and slowed it down, so the main riff leaves a lot of wide open spaces for the other guitar to sort of wrap itself around. Certainly more atmosphere here than anything on Backspacer (at least atmosphere in the traditional sense). There is a hushed quality to a lot of this (think the start of inside job--the opening two-three minutes). No solo to speak of. More of a soundscape in that regard. There is a bit of a slow jam at the end--not a solo as much as the two guitars are kind of weaving around each other, playing complementary parts. This song has a lot of potential, but Ed did sound a little breathy /overannunciated here, and the vocal melody felt underdeveloped.


This combo would be a great way to open/close a record--echoes of master/slave.

The Gift
A matt song. a mid tempo number that is almost catchy until Matt decides he would rather do his off kilter drumming which takes you just out of the song enough to make it vaguely unbalancing. There are lots of surprises in this one and some pretty interesting guitar interactions between stone and mike (almost like some odd call and response moments), I would have liked a smoother song to offset it. It’s all a little to disjointed for me. I bet everyone who isn’t me loves it. I didn’t pay attention to the lyrics. It’s a matt song so I’m sure I would have hated them if I had. Jeff sounds really good here. He’s fairly prominent in all these mixes, as is Matt.



Jumbled
This is pretty, a wobbly guitar sound that is reined in by a nice thick tone and further enhanced by a very prominent piano line. it’s very peaceful--almost like a lullaby, except meatier, and it has that odder time signature. Actually, you know what. This may reflect how the stuff I watch/listen to with my daughter has affected my musical tastes, but if the Sesame Street song Sing was performed while on gentle acid you might get something like this.



Alford Pleas
I’m not sure I’d call this one an instant classic, but it does sound like an Ed song, or at least the style I associate with him (although I guess it isn’t or it would have lyrics already). It starts out like the faster part of Unthought Known with some electric humming in the back that turns into a siren guitar that I liked. the beginning is fairly conventional (I don’t mean that in a bad way though), although it is catchy. About a minute in though the song totally changes direction, and becomes a bit more spacier (a little too abrupt for my tastes), or at least as much like that as Pearl Jam gets. It slows down, gets claustrophobic and a little creepy, and then ends going back to the earlier themes. it feels like the most collaborative of all the songs on here--elements of a few different people’s signature styles, (ed and Jeff, anyway). The quality here is a bit muted compared to the other songs though. No words yet from Ed, although it really sounds like they wrote this song to be a musical platform for the WM3 story. I wonder if they want to let that guy who collaborated with Ed on Army Reserve do some writing for it.

I'd managed to forget that...

but its classic

[gardenparty]

just a thought on "Mind Your Manners".

If it is on this soundtrack i'm imagining it will be a darker affair than what i think most of us have in mind now (something like Ole)

That would make me happy

[dkfan9]

hey remember that Eat Pray Love song? neither do I.

Quite.

If they release a new Ed album and there's no new PJ for months I'm done.

We're not all that far, at this point, from playing games like "If Pearl Jam released exactly the record YOU want them to make right now, what kinds of things would the reviews say?" and "If you could kiss any member of Pearl Jam, how far would you run in the other direction?"

Speculative reviews could be fun as a thread to pass the time.

3,2,1
Not the kind of song I have come to associate with Jeff. This is a fast, heavy number, but it is dirty, rather than glossy. Think Comatose or Habit (which, other than the outro, was what I was reminded of a bit more), not Supersonic. Very loud, very aggressive. Overall the sound is really pretty cool. The guitar equivalent of tires tearing up a muddy field is what I pictured (actually, imagine if You Are was sped up quite a bit). The chorus is a bit slower, and really churns in place---slow, but like it is revving up to take off again. There is a cool baseline driving the whole thing, thick and dirty. No bridge to speak of (or at least it is not so differentiated from the rest of the song that I was aware it was a bridge), but a longish outro with a pretty blistering mike solo. Fast playing, no outro jam like Habit (reminded me of an extended Comatose solo). Jeff isn’t actually singing on the verses (no one is) but he does on the chorus, which does have the lyric cold concession repeated each chorus, alongside a few other ‘adjective/noun couplets’. ‘ It’s a cold concession, it’s a bitter pill... (there were 4 or 5 phrases and then a countdown 5,4,3,2,1’ before exploding back into the verses. Not sure if this will be political or not--the chorus seemed ambiguous enough that it could go either way. I guess we’ll see how the verses are written. I’m really excited for this one. Quite possibly the thing I enjoyed the most. Granted some people don’t love how eddie sings the aggressive songs these days, but I think this is where he may be at his best right now, and with a good performance I picture this being great.


Believed In
Mid temp acoustic number with clean accents. Not that it sounds like wishlist (it doesn’t) but the way in which the guitar compliments sound so much brighter than the rest of the song. On one listen it felt like it was reaching for some complicated stuff--the song felt let down (believed in, rather than believe in), and the music was a little minor key, but leaving open the possibility that the singer’s faith can return. That came more in the way the song was sung (eddie sounded really good with some nice wordless soaring moments and not breathy) and the musical accents and solos, which were about losing faith. Seems like the kind of political song Ed would have written given the last few years. It didn’t sound like an album opener, but it conceptually seemed like it could be a bridge between backspacer and the album. Two nice little solos between verses. I wonder if stone and mike each played one. One had a chiming, almost U2 feel to it (the second one), and the first was a bit scruffier--almost like it was trying to climb out of a darker place of the course of the two songs. Really cool pivot during the bridge--afterwards the melody is basically the same but it doesn’t feel as dragged down--like they started playing the same part in a major key (if I’m using that properly). One of the more clever songs they’ve written in a while. If I am Mine was a little cleaner and they decided to build the second half of the song around the feelings in Mike’s solo you’d get something like this--it ends with a slow ‘pattern’ that sounds really nice.



Mercury/Transience
I think it makes sense to talk about these two songs together. It’s like PJ decided to release Light Years AND puzzles and games on the same album, or matt’s version of the Fixer and eddie’s fixed version. Both songs are built around the same fractured, sideways sounding riff (that’s the best I can do to describe it--like you were playing an electric guitar with a tuning fork). Very cool songs.

Mercury turns that riff into a very fast, very relentless beast of a song. Imagine that breakferall or GSMF or Brain of J just started with the drums and then the guitar kicked in, instead of vice verse. Couldn’t really make out what eddie was snarling here (sounded placeholder--like early live versions of Lukin). No bridge. Instead the song grinds to a halt, Eddie whispers some stuff (couldn’t make it out) and then it tears off again. Badass solo that does sound like the supersonic bridge a bit, but accelerated. This and 3,2,1 would make a pretty fantastic 1-2 album opener if they wanted to go the aggressive route.

This was pretty quick. Barely over 2 minutes

If there was a Pink Floydish song on the record Transience is it. They took the Mercury riff and slowed it down, so the main riff leaves a lot of wide open spaces for the other guitar to sort of wrap itself around. Certainly more atmosphere here than anything on Backspacer (at least atmosphere in the traditional sense). There is a hushed quality to a lot of this (think the start of inside job--the opening two-three minutes). No solo to speak of. More of a soundscape in that regard. There is a bit of a slow jam at the end--not a solo as much as the two guitars are kind of weaving around each other, playing complementary parts. This song has a lot of potential, but Ed did sound a little breathy /overannunciated here, and the vocal melody felt underdeveloped.


This combo would be a great way to open/close a record--echoes of master/slave.

The Gift
A matt song. a mid tempo number that is almost catchy until Matt decides he would rather do his off kilter drumming which takes you just out of the song enough to make it vaguely unbalancing. There are lots of surprises in this one and some pretty interesting guitar interactions between stone and mike (almost like some odd call and response moments), I would have liked a smoother song to offset it. It’s all a little to disjointed for me. I bet everyone who isn’t me loves it. I didn’t pay attention to the lyrics. It’s a matt song so I’m sure I would have hated them if I had. Jeff sounds really good here. He’s fairly prominent in all these mixes, as is Matt.



Jumbled
This is pretty, a wobbly guitar sound that is reined in by a nice thick tone and further enhanced by a very prominent piano line. it’s very peaceful--almost like a lullaby, except meatier, and it has that odder time signature. Actually, you know what. This may reflect how the stuff I watch/listen to with my daughter has affected my musical tastes, but if the Sesame Street song Sing was performed while on gentle acid you might get something like this.



Alford Pleas
I’m not sure I’d call this one an instant classic, but it does sound like an Ed song, or at least the style I associate with him (although I guess it isn’t or it would have lyrics already). It starts out like the faster part of Unthought Known with some electric humming in the back that turns into a siren guitar that I liked. the beginning is fairly conventional (I don’t mean that in a bad way though), although it is catchy. About a minute in though the song totally changes direction, and becomes a bit more spacier (a little too abrupt for my tastes), or at least as much like that as Pearl Jam gets. It slows down, gets claustrophobic and a little creepy, and then ends going back to the earlier themes. it feels like the most collaborative of all the songs on here--elements of a few different people’s signature styles, (ed and Jeff, anyway). The quality here is a bit muted compared to the other songs though. No words yet from Ed, although it really sounds like they wrote this song to be a musical platform for the WM3 story. I wonder if they want to let that guy who collaborated with Ed on Army Reserve do some writing for it.

I'd managed to forget that...

but its classic

it is. the pissed off reaction helped, too

[Lament]

So if Mind Your Manners really is an EV solo track (which oddly enough someone did propose in the MYM thread a while back), do we have any concrete reason to think this album is about to be announced in the immediate future?

[McParadigm]

So if Mind Your Manners really is an EV solo track (which oddly enough someone did propose in the MYM thread a while back), do we have any concrete reason to think this album is about to be announced in the immediate future?

It's been a hundred years, give or take?