Red Mosquito

I'm most excited for "Waiting for Stevie". That's been the standout track to me ever since the metal door leak. The breakdown of the guitars and Matt's drums coming back in which I'm pretty sure is what kicks off the Mike solo. It's a weird title and I have no idea what it's about but musically I'm hoping for great things!

I’ always several pages behind but wanted to note this in response to a prior convo:

At the time, I loved Vitalogy and No Code, but I was ready for them to do something a little more straightforward and Yield was the antidote (No Code and Vitalogy are both nearly always in my top 3 favorite albums from them). After Riot Act, I loved both Binaral and Riot Act but again just kind of wanted them to hit us with a lead pipe of rock music and we got that with S/T. After Backspacer and Lightning Bolt, I was ready for them to take a few more chances with their music and got that with Gigaton. Frankly, I wanted them to have at least one more album where they did a bit more tinkering and exploration before getting hit over the head with an antidote. We’ll see how I feel about it in three weeks though.

Strat wrote:https://www.stereogum.com/2257306/premature-evaluation-pearl-jam-dark-matter/reviews/premature-evaluation/?fbclid=IwAR2LegWz7s3gyRV0Grcg1pEbLDV4_8XWfFcZxGSgSJskTE4nkZMCV2gtT90_aem_AZpiUaicCIIkdxFEMJrY_QerbiUwMhOMpPAenkSWjyqH3dJ8HF6BebHxuBpwu6UwJxQ

Easily the best review so far.

Strat wrote:

tragabigzanda wrote:

Strat wrote:trags hatred blinds him

Your love blinds you. Also it will make you go deaf.

You take leaps and bounds to shit on every thing about this new pj and connect dots that aren't there.

ive been honest in my 3 star at best rankings while also shitting on production

NICE TRY

Devastating betrayal of friendship....I haven't seen this level of about-facing since I threw my milk on Chad Goldsmith in the sixth grade.

oneway23 wrote:

Strat wrote:

tragabigzanda wrote:

Strat wrote:trags hatred blinds him

Your love blinds you. Also it will make you go deaf.

You take leaps and bounds to shit on every thing about this new pj and connect dots that aren't there.

ive been honest in my 3 star at best rankings while also shitting on production

NICE TRY

Devastating betrayal of friendship....I haven't seen this level of about-facing since I threw my milk on Chad Goldsmith in the sixth grade.

THAT WAS YOU?!

stip wrote:

oneway23 wrote:

Strat wrote:

tragabigzanda wrote:

Strat wrote:trags hatred blinds him

Your love blinds you. Also it will make you go deaf.

You take leaps and bounds to shit on every thing about this new pj and connect dots that aren't there.

ive been honest in my 3 star at best rankings while also shitting on production

NICE TRY

Devastating betrayal of friendship....I haven't seen this level of about-facing since I threw my milk on Chad Goldsmith in the sixth grade.

THAT WAS YOU?!

Tell your mom to stop eating dinner in bed, Chad...it's revolting

Val wrote:

Mike wrote:I can't seem to get a grasp on how the first two songs will sound like from these reviews.

Like Go followed by Animal











(hopefully)

this is not going to happen (but I hope we like them anyway)

Go and Animal both completely relied on Dave A's drumming style to sound like Go and Animal

Thanks to everyone sharing the reviews. I'm even more excited for this thing (to leak) now.

I don’t remember Gigaton reviews reaching these levels of praise, do you?

Val wrote:I don’t remember Gigaton reviews reaching these levels of praise, do you?

Well, metacritic has Gigaton at 80, so similar to what we've seen for DM so far overall.

https://www.metacritic.com/music/gigato ... ic-reviews

I did notice that Uncut gave Gigaton 70 compared to the 80 they have given to DM.

The DM reviews seem a little more effusive. I'm kind of surprised that the metacritic scores are the same.

Sample size is much smaller for DM so far and some of the reviewers who rated Gigaton most highly have yet to rate DM. Kerrang, Variety, Entertainment, Consequence all gave ratings between 83-100 to Gigaton, taking the average score higher. Uncut is the only reviewer to have rated both albums and given DM a higher score (80 compared to 70 for Gigaton). Classic Rock and Mojo gave 80 to both.

Note: Metacritic doesn't have a page up for DM yet. I'm basing the comparisons on the reviews posted in this thread.

4 out of 5 also seems to be the standard score given to serviceable records of legacy acts for the publications that reviewed it so far. Seems like every modern Pearl Jam record gets 4/5 from Mojo etc

RM loves scoring and ranking so much

they feel like much more than servicable reviews though. that is a more apt description of what i recall from gigaton

Strat wrote:RM loves scoring and ranking so much

8/10. it’s my third favorite thing we do

stip wrote:they feel like much more than servicable reviews though. that is a more apt description of what i recall from gigaton

I’m seeing this distinction too

These numbers matter nothing to me

I think these reviews, barring the Stereogum review, read like basically every single review a PJ record has gotten this century. One part "from the ashes of...", one part "reminiscent of their aggressive early days," and one part "still rocking and fighting despite getting older." You could basically write PJ reviews on autopilot at this point; they get the same good/not great reviews for pretty much every single album.