Red Mosquito

stip wrote:i love how raw and explosive the start of this album is. maybe my favorite 3 song sequence in the catalog.


Especially after how subdued Riot Act (and Binaural to a lesser extent) were. It has always been the sound of the band roaring back to life.


Life Wasted sounds so huge, and Eddie has that desperate energy

stip wrote:I really dig the way the choruses on severed hand drop down into that lower register. and that great staccato guitar part between the the first chorus/second verse.

having said that, Ive never quite liked severed hand as much I think I should. It is fine, but I dont love it. Feels like it should be a little louder/huger, and the outro solo is busy without too much of an emotional core, which Mike’s solos usually have

stip wrote:marker really suffers from being on S/T. Eddie is too scratchy for the song, and the chorus guitars in particular should be a bit cleaner. The songs has all the elements of a soaring classic but its being played in a garage, not a stadium. This could have been an all timer.

the keys at the end work well.

i wish it was captured during yield. or gigaton

Jaeti wrote:

stip wrote:i love how raw and explosive the start of this album is. maybe my favorite 3 song sequence in the catalog.


Especially after how subdued Riot Act (and Binaural to a lesser extent) were. It has always been the sound of the band roaring back to life.


Life Wasted sounds so huge, and Eddie has that desperate energy

I like Life Wasted. Like it a lot. It deserved to be followed by a much better album.

stip wrote:I would probably hate parachutes if it was a beatles song, but it isnt and I love it.


such a lovely quirky oddity.

the way ‘parachutes have opened now’ floats into the next verse is so good.

but still, as good as it is, not sure rubbing the song down with s/t’s sandpaper production needed to happen. another song that would have been better elsewhere. not sure which album, though

stip wrote:unemployable is right down there at the bottom of their studio tracks. I like almost nothing about it. The shiny sound of Eddie’s voice, the pop affectations of the chorus (so much worse here than infallible or ltrp), the surprisingly condescending lyrics. none of it works for me, and the music doesn’t grab me at all.

I kind of like the outro a bit

stip wrote:pearl jam’s dreary acoustic numbers (all or none, thumbing my way, dead man) usually dont work for me. gone fares a little bit better, mostly because the chorus is really catchy and Eddie hadnt really done this kind of clean soaring chorus since Yield- and I do prefer this to In Hiding

yeah, gone is a bit of a pearl jam guilty pleasure. the ‘if nothing is everything’ sequence makes me smile

stip wrote:wasted reprise is easily my favorite of the album interstitial songs.

Jaeti wrote:

stip wrote:I would probably hate parachutes if it was a beatles song, but it isnt and I love it.


such a lovely quirky oddity.

the way ‘parachutes have opened now’ floats into the next verse is so good.

but still, as good as it is, not sure rubbing the song down with s/t’s sandpaper production needed to happen. another song that would have been better elsewhere. not sure which album, though

Anyone know anyone who convinced a significant other to make Parachutes their "first dance" song? I tried, put it on my shortlist, but never really got close.

Jaeti wrote:

stip wrote:wasted reprise is easily my favorite of the album interstitial songs.

Agree. That is all.

stip wrote:the army reserve story is pretty moving and I like the verses, but I have always felt like the chorus belonged to a different song. I wish this was on Binaural. Another case of S/T’s production undermining what is a pretty atmospheric song - or should be.

stip wrote:i love that they wrote a song like Come Back, and quite enjoy it, but this is maybe the song that S/T’s production does the most dirty. It strips the warmth from a series of very engaging performances. you get the sadness, but it is too abrasive to be as lonely as it should be. this song should leave a cozy pocket for you to slide up into, but it never does

intellectually the choices all make sense. the singer is trapped and desperate and hopeless. but the song’s heart gets sacrificed in the name of its head, which does not play to their strengths

still a good song. but could have been great

Jaeti wrote:

stip wrote:pearl jam’s dreary acoustic numbers (all or none, thumbing my way, dead man) usually dont work for me. gone fares a little bit better, mostly because the chorus is really catchy and Eddie hadnt really done this kind of clean soaring chorus since Yield- and I do prefer this to In Hiding

yeah, gone is a bit of a pearl jam guilty pleasure. the ‘if nothing is everything’ sequence makes me smile

Gone gets stuck in my head. When it's on, I enjoy singing the chorus and the outro. But I'm never under the impression that it's actually a good song.

stip wrote:what was the last great mike song that was great because of him? it isnt inside job. i actually like the music (more than i remembered. i love my new headphones !), though the song goes on a bit too long and the catharsis isn’t powerful enough to justify the length. and the lyrics (while clearly personal) are too obvious, and this is not a winning vocal melody (though eddie is game)

stip wrote:i do like the twinkling at the end

stip wrote:

Jaeti wrote:

stip wrote:wasted reprise is easily my favorite of the album interstitial songs.

Agree. That is all.

we are like S/T twins. How do you feel about the first 3 songs