Justin Hawkins (The Darkness) reviews Dark Matter

Spiritual_Chaos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNp_t3JAhPM

Spiritual_Chaos

TLDR:

- Thinks he has found out Andrew Watts MO as producer
- Doesn't sound like classic Pearl Jam
- Thought it would sound more "live"
- A lot of interesting things going on with the guitars
- Love the saturation of the instruments
- Eddie sounds younger and not as shredded as of later years
- Hears Eddie struggling with the vocals at places, and singing "around the struggles"

YAKIMATSU

Best and truest comment "filthy bass".  Jeff is shredding!

lastexitlondon

I still can't hear the bass. 

beano.79

I'm not even a darkness fan (not close) but I rarely disagree with what Justin says. He is an intelligent guy and a good musician.My only gripe here is pearl jam are no longer a '90s band' 

spankyMP

lastexitlondon said:

I still can't hear the bass. 

There is that one bit around the 1:32-1:38 mark, where you hear it so clearly that I wish it were more prominent and would spike like more often.

spankyMP

Thanks for sharing!

BF25394

beano.79 said:

I'm not even a darkness fan (not close) but I rarely disagree with what Justin says. He is an intelligent guy and a good musician.My only gripe here is pearl jam are no longer a '90s band' 

They're a band that originated in the '90s and was most popular in the '90s. It's fair to call them a '90s band even though have continued to make great music in the quarter-century since the '90s. Duran Duran has put out fantastic albums for 40 years and was most popular in the '80s, but it's still fair to call them an '80s band.

Zod

BF25394 said:

beano.79 said:

I'm not even a darkness fan (not close) but I rarely disagree with what Justin says. He is an intelligent guy and a good musician.My only gripe here is pearl jam are no longer a '90s band' 

They're a band that originated in the '90s and was most popular in the '90s. It's fair to call them a '90s band even though have continued to make great music in the quarter-century since the '90s. Duran Duran has put out fantastic albums for 40 years and was most popular in the '80s, but it's still fair to call them an '80s band.

Your post just makes me sadder that the wedding album still hasn't gotten a vinyl reissue yet.  I love that album.

BF25394

Zod said:

BF25394 said:

beano.79 said:

I'm not even a darkness fan (not close) but I rarely disagree with what Justin says. He is an intelligent guy and a good musician.My only gripe here is pearl jam are no longer a '90s band' 

They're a band that originated in the '90s and was most popular in the '90s. It's fair to call them a '90s band even though have continued to make great music in the quarter-century since the '90s. Duran Duran has put out fantastic albums for 40 years and was most popular in the '80s, but it's still fair to call them an '80s band.

Your post just makes me sadder that the wedding album still hasn't gotten a vinyl reissue yet.  I love that album.

So good, but even that album is 30 years old. "Too Much Information" was ahead of its time since it didn't even take the World Wide Web into account as most people were barely aware of it, let alone on it, in 1993. But I was thinking more about the band's 21st-century output. Astronaut, All You Need Is Now, Paper Gods, Future Past specifically. And Danse Macabre is fun, albeit mostly remixes and covers.

Marieow

Spiritual_Chaos said:

TLDR:

- Thinks he has found out Andrew Watts MO as producer
- Doesn't sound like classic Pearl Jam
- Thought it would sound more "live"
- A lot of interesting things going on with the guitars
- Love the saturation of the instruments
- Eddie sounds younger and not as shredded as of later years
- Hears Eddie struggling with the vocals at places, and singing "around the struggles"

Good TL;DR, but I'll add a bit more to give context. 

- Thinks he has found out Andrew Watts MO as producer : I think he was spot on saying that he AW takes established bands and guides them back to their earlier creative strengths was pretty spot on. He also said some of the production choices were reminiscent of Mutt Lange's signature formula of allowing space between the guitar riffs and vocals. 

- Doesn't sound like classic Pearl Jam
- Thought it would sound more "live": I think this kind of relates to the previous comment. Maybe he was thinking more like Vs?

- A lot of interesting things going on with the guitars: He also said many of the riffs were "lovely." He made a comparison with Johnny Marr that I actually can hear now. 

- Love the saturation of the instruments

- Eddie sounds younger and not as shredded as of later years: Specifically, he said Eddie has changed how he sings so that he doesn't rely as much as the growls as he used to. 

- Hears Eddie struggling with the vocals at places, and singing "around the struggles": He also added that he meant that in a good way because it's rock n roll to hear the vulnerability of the vocalists. The imperfections. 

I thought this was a great review. Very fair to them. 

Spiritual_Chaos

Stone Gossard was amused by the video. 

"ANYTIME THE ENGLISH LIKE YOU, YOU'RE LIKE TOTALLY EXCITED"

lastexitlondon

I've liked stone a long time
 So he should be impressed 

droptheleash9

Listened to the album in the theater last night and was mightily impressed. Thought the songs sounded great and Andrew Watt knocked it out of the park (despite missing in places on Earthling).

I'm far from one to carry water for this band and have been critical in the past, but I could care less if the singer of a one-hit-wonder, glam rock band is at all critical about my favorite artist's release. Should we ask what Brittany Spears thinks too? What about the boys from Hanson?