Dark Matter: Official Album Thread

[stip]

Stip, don't take this the wrong way, but have you spent time with your family this week? Do they know if you're ok?

Sometimes I imagine Stip having tied his family to various chairs pointing furiously at charts like that Always Sunny meme while Pearl Jam plays.

Gotta take one of my girls to a soccer game. But I'll text from there. Multitasking is the key to strong relationships

[WaitingForBluey]

Stip, don't take this the wrong way, but have you spent time with your family this week? Do they know if you're ok?

Sometimes I imagine Stip having tied his family to various chairs pointing furiously at charts like that Always Sunny meme while Pearl Jam plays.

Gotta take one of my girls to a soccer game. But I'll text from there. Multitasking is the key to strong relationships

Is she the goalie? Please remind her... Don't react, respond

[VinylGuy]

I'm on my third listen in two days. It's quite enjoyable, isn't it? But, boy oh boy, Dark Matter and Running are easily the two big bummers on this album. Whose idea was it to make those the first two singles? Yikes

The consistency of opinion on this is quite startling. RM is usually all over the map with polar opposite takes but this ain't one of them.

i love DM and it totally makes sense as a single, hell it was a hit for them. Running not so much.

Wreckage is a great third single, they should have released a video for it.

[mattyv1908]

Waiting for Stevie, from the second it begins, it basically liquid catharsis. It's like they said 'what if the bridge of breath' but the whole song. 'what if the final two minutes of Alive, but the whole song.' 'What if the bridge of Corduory, but the whole song?'

And they fucking pull it off. And while it is still early days, I have listened to this song a LOT, and at least one in three times I start tearing up again. There are times I start full on crying, as it finds something else to pull out of me. I just can't get over how huge this song is, how encompassing, how much it invites you to just let everything go, how much it reaches in and just pulls shit out of you, in an act of joy. This song just finds that liminal moment between where things are not okay and then they are, plants a flag, and will not be moved.

And it is every second of the song. There is actually no build to this song. There's barely a bridge. There is no real distinction between chorus and verse. It is just THAT moment, for five glorious minutes.

I’m glad you’re enjoying this song. The first time I heard it I wanted to get out of it what you are, but this the most skippable song on the album for me because it seems like they/someone is trying to bring back a sound that doesn’t exist anymore in the band as they’ve matured beyond their infancy that was Ten. This is the epitome of trying to make another Alive or Breath for the sake of it. It feels forced.

Now Setting Sun in contrast reaches that same cathartic release in a completely natural way for a band that been around as long as they have. This is the Alive or Breath through 30+ years of life and maturity taking place.

It seems there’s a fair amount of people who are connecting to Waiting for Stevie because it’s taking them back to a point in their lives when the aforementioned songs evoked the same reactions. I personally don’t want to be taken back in a nostalgic way, I want to be met in the present with that same feeling. Where Waiting for Stevie feels like a facsimile, Setting Sun feels authentic.

Setting Sun is also truly great, so I'll cosign all those things you just said there.

Obviously I disagree with WFS, but I don't think it is or even trying to sound like a Ten retread. It feels of its moment while capturing what it was about that era (and that type of song) that I (and perhaps fans of that era, but it's not reducible to them/that) really look for.

Setting Sun also does really cool work tying together the different threads that tend to pop up in album closers - so it's another song like WFS that (for me) feels like the essence of something without feeling like a retread, and it evokes so much feeling partially because it is a great song but partially because it is priming things within us that are already there and waiting to be deployed in service of the emotional experience.

It's not fan service. It is a band deploying its history to great effect. That's always risky, because every time you do it wrong you get the experience you had with WFS. this feels like a facsimile. Someone taking the thing you like and shoving it on screen to say you liked this one. Here it is again. That's fan service. As opposed to something that takes the essence of what you loved about something, and recaptures it in a new way that feels familiar but not repetitive, that reminds you of how it felt when you first encountered the thing you love and lets you reexperience it with something new.

For me both WFS and Setting Sun fall distinctly in the later camp. And both are evoking different elements of Pearl Jam's essence. But for me WFS is my favorite 'type' of pearl jam. Not better or best. But it pushes my biggest buttons.

Are you a fan of that kind of early era 'swing for the fences' bombast in their catalog generally?

Yes, but with caveats.

For instance, I wouldn’t want to see Alive and Breath back to back in a set list, or perhaps even in the same set.

I loved the deconstruction of the band’s sound from Ten. Fantastic album, but Vs was something different and then Vitalogy put the stake in the heart of that sound.

I think their experimental endeavors are what make them so sustainable to listen to. The Of the Girl, Help Help, Sleight of Hand, In My Tree, Push Me Pull Me type songs are what broadens their scope and allowed them to tread so many different avenues successfully. That’s what makes them unique. Their versatility is what sets them apart from their peers both of yesteryears and currently.

I would argue even a song like Do the Evolution treads new sonic ground at the time for them, so in that sense there was an element of experimentation.

Put me in the camp that feels like the band got better the further away from the Ten era they pushed themselves. I know a giant chunk of the fan base would disagree, and I understand why.

[liebzz]

If engaging in full comparative analysis, Dark Matter has serious challenges in terms of our lived in histories with those songs, and I am not yet convinced that as individual songs, these have yet risen to the same level of their other songs. Yet.

However, as a complete work taken solely as a whole from the intro leading into Scared of Fear through the final strums and that let us not fade, this very well be their best work. I don’t think Eddie, to that extent, was engaging in hyperbole.

[blueviper]

Just realized I have no laptop at home to burn my dark matter cd for my usb in the car. Gotta wait and do it at work on Monday.

[WaitingForBluey]

If engaging in full comparative analysis, Dark Matter has serious challenges in terms of our lived in histories with those songs, and I am not yet convinced that as individual songs, these have yet risen to the same level of their other songs. Yet.

However, as a complete work taken solely as a whole from the intro leading into Scared of Fear through the final strums and that let us not fade, this very well be their best work. I don’t think Eddie, to that extent, was engaging in hyperbole.

The fact that this statement does not immediately appear absurd to me is pretty wild

[VinylGuy]

If engaging in full comparative analysis, Dark Matter has serious challenges in terms of our lived in histories with those songs, and I am not yet convinced that as individual songs, these have yet risen to the same level of their other songs. Yet.

However, as a complete work taken solely as a whole from the intro leading into Scared of Fear through the final strums and that let us not fade, this very well be their best work. I don’t think Eddie, to that extent, was engaging in hyperbole.

yeah, its too new to actually know that, but one thing that happening with this one is that i really want to listen to every song. Running is the fun song i need after the emotional WFS, SS is a very nice little song, Wont Tell is building to be a favorite...

Im sure that will change with time, but there is not a bad song on this one or one song that i think its half baked.

[WaitingForBluey]

Gotta take one of my girls to a soccer game. But I'll text from there. Multitasking is the key to strong relationships

Is she the goalie? Please remind her... Don't react, respond

Waiting for Messi

[WaitingForBluey]

Kicking

[WaitingForBluey]

Upper Crossbar

[blueviper]

Okay, so tallying things up

Gigaton: 3 wins, 5 ties
Dark Matter: 5 wins, 5 ties

Ties feel more likely to break Dark Matter's way over time. So as of now, I'd put Dark Matter ahead of Gigaton.

ladies in gentlemen, my new top five

Vitalogy
Ten
Vs
Dark Matter
Gigaton


I feel good about that, and great about the fact that two albums in my top five are from the last five years!

Nice! I feel wherever Dark Matter shows up in my ranking, Gigaton will be near it.

[liebzz]

If engaging in full comparative analysis, Dark Matter has serious challenges in terms of our lived in histories with those songs, and I am not yet convinced that as individual songs, these have yet risen to the same level of their other songs. Yet.

However, as a complete work taken solely as a whole from the intro leading into Scared of Fear through the final strums and that let us not fade, this very well be their best work. I don’t think Eddie, to that extent, was engaging in hyperbole.

yeah, its too new to actually know that, but one thing that happening with this one is that i really want to listen to every song. Running is the fun song i need after the emotional WFS, SS is a very nice little song, Wont Tell is building to be a favorite...

Im sure that will change with time, but there is not a bad song on this one or one song that i think its half baked.

I should note I am sure some of these songs will ultimately become the staples for me, but yes, I have no urge to listen to any of its parts alone, even if I find the parts wonderful. There are so few albums from any band that I feel a full compulsion only to hear the whole thing in its order, and I am not doing it waiting to hear this song or that. Or songs that I can take out of its context and leave on their own. I am sure that very well probably will happen given time with this album, but thus far, its existing in a space where I don’t want to listen to the individual songs alone but want to always have 48 uninterrupted minutes with this thing. The arc of this thing just takes me on such an emotional ride that if the pieces are jumbled I just don’t think it will have the same impact.

[Oversize]

I'm on my third listen in two days. It's quite enjoyable, isn't it? But, boy oh boy, Dark Matter and Running are easily the two big bummers on this album. Whose idea was it to make those the first two singles? Yikes

The consistency of opinion on this is quite startling. RM is usually all over the map with polar opposite takes but this ain't one of them.

i love DM and it totally makes sense as a single, hell it was a hit for them. Running not so much.

Wreckage is a great third single, they should have released a video for it.

Intrigued to see how Wreckage is received by the charts. I think it will be strong enough to drum up demand for a 4th single...

Won't Tell with a video will absolutely kill (I think). Probably more pop power than Just Breathe, and about the same as Last Kiss.

[ABNorman]

At the moment, pretty incredibly, it feels like DM might settle in tier 2 for me, where:

Tier 1:
No Code
Yield
Vitalogy

Tier 2:
Ten
Vs

Tier 3:
Binaural
Gigaton
S/T
Lightning Bolt

Tier 4:
Riot Act
Backspacer

[Oversize]

Upper Crossbar

Upper (Can't Use Your) Hand

[VinylGuy]

I'm on my third listen in two days. It's quite enjoyable, isn't it? But, boy oh boy, Dark Matter and Running are easily the two big bummers on this album. Whose idea was it to make those the first two singles? Yikes

The consistency of opinion on this is quite startling. RM is usually all over the map with polar opposite takes but this ain't one of them.

i love DM and it totally makes sense as a single, hell it was a hit for them. Running not so much.

Wreckage is a great third single, they should have released a video for it.

Intrigued to see how Wreckage is received by the charts. I think it will be strong enough to drum up demand for a 4th single...

Won't Tell with a video will absolutely kill (I think). Probably more pop power than Just Breathe, and about the same as Last Kiss.

those two need to appear on a netflix series or something like that for the full mainstream kiss

[dimejinky99]

Stand back when the spirit comes

[McParadigm]

There are zero bummers on this album. But Running is not single material, and I’m still skeptical that it was actually pushed as one. I never saw it receive even that lowest cursory level of radio play that comes from basic radio promotion.

Feels more like putting Habit on the flip side of Who You Are, or Tremor Christ (if I recall?) on the b side of StBC. Except now, freed from the confines of physical release media, they had the option to stagger listener access.

[Tj]

How each song on this album speaks and communicates to characters in the songs of the past. If you just with each of these for a few minutes in the front of your brain., and work your way through the catalog its pretty cool. It maybe a happy accident . It probably is to some extent unavoidable. Maybe I'm reaching. I am not going to offer a example. I want you to reach your own conclusions. Just think of some of the stand out song on each album that are narratives of other, but even some of the first person stuff.
Also the juxtaposition of something like Faithful and WFS and those songs connection and relationships with a higher vibration really shows change