Red Mosquito

stip wrote:Enimmi, what was your overall impression of Ed's vocals, since that is often what makes or breaks a record

Ed's vocals were fine, as far as I could tell. Like I said, the audio they played us was compressed, and his voice was not the same on all the songs.

I got to run now. I also have some notes on the Q and A afterwards, and I will try to get these gathered at the end of the day or sometime during the coming few days.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'll like SBM. It's just a nice little song, can't really hate it. Really wish there were more rockers though, looking forward to Getaway.

Also the AltNation confirmed that Yellow Moon has a solo from Mike and somebody else commented the guitars were like Nothing As It Seems. That's got me excited for it.

The two that are still question marks are My Father's Son and Swallowed Whole. Nobody seems to be able to describe them. My Father's Son seems like a kind of experimental rock song, and Swallowed Whole seems like a happy mid tempo song?

I don't think anyone ever described anything with odd time signature changes very well. The best comment we have is that we have those in the bridge (which is cool, the verses and bridge of Evacuation are a couple of my favourite things about Binaural). Like, I've never read a good description of Evacuation I don't think.

I guess I'd like to be told that Swallowed Whole is kickass, but we all know the lyrics come from Unthought Known, and now that it's a Backspacer out-take, so it could be a big pile of meh.

Hah, yeah I want to hear that Swallowed Whole is good. AltNation liked both MFS and SW so that's good.

I didn't see it mentioned as a Backspacer song though. The first description of an Into the Wild type song though got me worried.

The alt nation piece spoke well of it


Based on initial reports this is shaping up to be a fine record

Great review Dennis, banks for taking the time and sharing with us.

harmless wrote:I guess I'd like to be told that Swallowed Whole is kickass, but we all know the lyrics come from Unthought Known, and now that it's a Backspacer out-take, so it could be a big pile of meh.

I'm fairly certain that Pendulum was mentioned as the Backspacer hangover.

Vindicator wrote:Hah, yeah I want to hear that Swallowed Whole is good. AltNation liked both MFS and SW so that's good.

I didn't see it mentioned as a Backspacer song though. The first description of an Into the Wild type song though got me worried.

I think BOB said it was an out-take during the first listening party.

(see above)

Birds in Hell wrote:

harmless wrote:I guess I'd like to be told that Swallowed Whole is kickass, but we all know the lyrics come from Unthought Known, and now that it's a Backspacer out-take, so it could be a big pile of meh.

I'm fairly certain that Pendulum was mentioned as the Backspacer hangover.

Oh, really? My bad. Carry on then!

What I'm really liking from all these reviews is that we've had multiple mentions of Jeff's dominance on quite a few tracks. There was always not enough Jeff in most Pearl Jam songs for me. Exciting stuff, I'm pumped again

He easily had the most enthusiasm in interviews. I guess he might've made this record happen.

The impression I'm getting is that once again, overall Pj have managed to make a new record which doesn't really sound like anything that's come before, broadly speaking.
This to me is at least as good as some of the songs seemingly challenging, or at least leaving the ones who have heard them so far, saying they'll have to hear them again.

If its a grower, all to the good. Backspacer was pretty much an instant like. I'd rather grow to like a record. Those ones last a whole lot longer.

Agreed. "Interesting" is a reaction I'm having. Whatever Backspacer was, I never thought it was greatly interesting.

Yeah it was never really that. What they did manage was to make a lot of the songs sound like Pj overall but through a soda pop lens.

This one definitely sounds like there's a whole lot more going on.

Really hope it does have more to offer. Worst case scenario, Even if I don't like it or get where they're trying to go, I can at least appreciate the attempt.

Just a thought, bear in mind, eds had two years of playing SBM live. I'd hazard a guess it was probably the band wanted it on there, not him. But we'll never know.

gawd the waiting...

At the very least, this album has the potential to have some songs that are in my top 20 or 30 all time PJ songs. Nothing on Backspacer or S/T came close to that. But stuff like Infallible, Pendulum and Yellow Moon are right up my alley.

The moment I heard the first riff of Infallible on the soundcheck I said "YES This is it!"

Vindicator wrote:The moment I heard the first riff of Infallible on the soundcheck I said "YES This is it!"

It's good, but I'm not sure about those 80's licks at the end of the riff... I hope it's not too ZZ Top.