Those last 5 songs (Swallowed Whole and Yellow Moon are ok but not great) are by far the worse run of songs from any album to date imo. Nothing comes close. Pendulum and Getaway are 5 stars for me LB and Infallible are 4's and everything else is 3 or under.
GIGATON (2020) After trying to make a new album with Brendan O’Brien Pearl Jam - for so far unknown reasons - chose to restart with a new producer, resulting in Gigaton. Overall a great sounding album with many great songs. The two problems I do have with the album, is 1) that after the rocking start everything stops dead in the tracks with song number number 3 ”Dance of the Clairvoyants” which is production wise completely different from the rest. There is no life to the sound while the first two feels like they were recorded live in a garage. And not that ”Dance of the Clairvoyants” is a bad song - it is a great song. But it is so different sounding from the two songs preceding it that whatever the album was going for up to that points ends and it all restarts. They should have either had the production of Dance of the Clairvoyants be the guide for the sound of the whole album or cut the song. Albums should sound like one album. The other thing is the sequencing of the album - it (pretty much) starts of with all the rocking songs and then switches to just slow songs. It is weirdly balanced. But it is a nice album and makes me hopeful for the next one.
"Mostly I think that people react sensitively because they know you’ve got a point"
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GIGATON (2020)
After trying to make a new album with Brendan O’Brien Pearl Jam - for so far unknown reasons - chose to restart with a new producer, resulting in Gigaton. Overall a great sounding album with many great songs. The two problems I do have with the album, is 1) that after the rocking start everything stops dead in the tracks with song number number 3 ”Dance of the Clairvoyants” which is production wise completely different from the rest. There is no life to the sound while the first two feels like they were recorded live in a garage. And not that ”Dance of the Clairvoyants” is a bad song - it is a great song. But it is so different sounding from the two songs preceding it that whatever the album was going for up to that points ends and it all restarts. They should have either had the production of Dance of the Clairvoyants be the guide for the sound of the whole album or cut the song. Albums should sound like one album. The other thing is the sequencing of the album - it (pretty much) starts of with all the rocking songs and then switches to just slow songs. It is weirdly balanced. But it is a nice album and makes me hopeful for the next one.