Red Mosquito

Vindicator wrote:The final 4 songs are absolute molasses to get through. What a snoozefest. Buckle Up is one dimensional and pretty boring overall, Comes Then Goes is so long and boring and again one dimensional, Retrograde is a huge cheese fest the likes of which haven't been seen ever, Sirens wasnt even this cheesy. The Hard Sun esque outro is great and can't save it. River Cross is an ok song but coming from the slog of the previous songs, I'm ready for it to be over. Ed added too many words yet again.

Monkey_Driven wrote:

Vindicator wrote:The final 4 songs are absolute molasses to get through. What a snoozefest. Buckle Up is one dimensional and pretty boring overall, Comes Then Goes is so long and boring and again one dimensional, Retrograde is a huge cheese fest the likes of which haven't been seen ever, Sirens wasnt even this cheesy. The Hard Sun esque outro is great and can't save it. River Cross is an ok song but coming from the slog of the previous songs, I'm ready for it to be over. Ed added too many words yet again.

Ms Harmless wrote:

Jaeti wrote:Random song comparison: Comes Then Goes reminds me a lot of "Mercury" by Counting Crows, though CTG ramps up quite a bit more in the end.

I said *exactly* this in the CTG song thread, and this makes me love both songs even more

evenslow wrote:

Monkey_Driven wrote:I've listened to Retrograde three times and I cannot remember a single thing about it.

how about the incredible last minute?

Leatherhead wrote:I just wanna say I'm liking almost everything Eddie does on this album.

Strat wrote:

Monkey_Driven wrote:

Vindicator wrote:The final 4 songs are absolute molasses to get through. What a snoozefest. Buckle Up is one dimensional and pretty boring overall, Comes Then Goes is so long and boring and again one dimensional, Retrograde is a huge cheese fest the likes of which haven't been seen ever, Sirens wasnt even this cheesy. The Hard Sun esque outro is great and can't save it. River Cross is an ok song but coming from the slog of the previous songs, I'm ready for it to be over. Ed added too many words yet again.

me and the vindicator account have absolutely nothing in common.

Leatherhead wrote:In fact, I really really like Eddie on most of these songs. His singing over the last 2 or 3-ish albums has sounded a bit robotic. Like he knows he can't do what he used to, so instead he's been trying to sing as well as he possibly thinks he can on every song, leading to things sounding stale and boring. On Gigaton Eddie sounds like he's just fuckin' goin for it, passionate, having fun, and kicking ass. So much of his singing on this is kinda weird. He makes a lot of different kinds of sounds, seems to use a lot of varied singing voices throughout. I like it, a lot.

I might add to this tomorrow, or just wish I never wrote it instead. One or the other. Or neither. But this is something I like about the record.

This is an album about surviving past the end. It’s an unexpectedly appropriate subject for this day and age, and Pearl Jam is a uniquely authentic musical voice for it. They are capable of capturing, without fetishistic assumption or romanticism, the real experience of survival. They know what it means to live with losses that you can’t outdistance. They know it’s not always going to feel like it was worth it.

So save your predictions, and burn your assumptions. But the band also wants you to feel the natural jubilance of the phrase “there’s much to be done.” Their reaction to the bitter end isn’t trademark fury, but just the same I’m still alive, different day.

In some ways this record reminds me of albums that came out in and were colored by the shadow of 9/11, even though they were recorded well before. It’s a happy accident without the happy: the little band from Seattle calling out, offering one last bit of song before vanishing into the strangled contractions of the city’s newest epidemic. One last pep talk to carry into isolation with you, a final rendition of their favorite promise: you’re not alone, not really. “I can hear you singing in the distance,” they assure the listener. “I can see you when I close my eyes.”

The lyrics spend less time than usual seeking answers to trademark big questions, and focus instead on offering whatever small lessons the band picked up along the way. It makes for a less optimistic listen, with fewer pie in the sky assurances of inevitable redemption, but it also leaves you with the sense that those small lessons might actually have been the answers all along. Simple rules to live by: stand back when the spirit comes. It’s alright to say no to something if it makes you feel less safe, even if saying no means being seen as a disappointment in your own home. Turn sideways from a dangerous undertow, but do not be deterred by it.

Lessons on surviving, from a band that had to learn each of the above rules the hard way. The first song says it directly, acknowledging perhaps the most universal truth: “the answers will be found in the mistakes that we have made.”

The inspirations were clearly (primarily) Trump and climate change, but the band’s empathetic fixation on surviving hardships (both physically and spiritually) make this the ideal album to carry into uncertain quarantine. It’s an album that wants you to feel less alone. First, do no harm. Then: buckle up.

Even the president, lazily disparaged, is subsequently sympathized with in terms the band cannot help but understand. “His best days gone, hard to admit,” and here the smugly-strutting song becomes a mother’s hug. “Angry punches, with nothing to hit.” It’s like a Riot Act song all grown up...still furious for all of the denied and powerless, but now able to find its own reflection in the failures of the powerful.

Pearl Jam used to make albums about surviving the moment. Then, for a while there, they sort of made albums about remembering what it was like to be surviving the moment. Now, they’re finally ready to talk about you do next. Which in its way is just another kind of promise to survive. Whoever said it’s all been said gave up on satisfaction.

I could very well end up humiliated by how much I like this. I’ll live with it. Because whether or not this is a great record, it hits me right now because I’m pretty scared but hoping, and a hope dies last.

Monkey_Driven wrote:

Vindicator wrote:The final 4 songs are absolute molasses to get through. What a snoozefest. Buckle Up is one dimensional and pretty boring overall, Comes Then Goes is so long and boring and again one dimensional, Retrograde is a huge cheese fest the likes of which haven't been seen ever, Sirens wasnt even this cheesy. The Hard Sun esque outro is great and can't save it. River Cross is an ok song but coming from the slog of the previous songs, I'm ready for it to be over. Ed added too many words yet again.