I have to say this album has been in my car for a long time. As a huge fan... my feelings seem to keep changing about the album fascinating... at times I think PJ is rocking at full force and at other times I feel a bit dissapointed... (I hope I don't get skewered for uttering any type of criticIsm) I spend a lot of time analyzing the different songs... letting them grow on me, trying to hear them in different ways, wishing dynamics or stresses had been changed around. At times I think something was missing from the album, maybe final polishing... it seems like a lot of the songs don't reach their full potential.... which bothers me... because I keep hoping the world will be re-introduced to pearljam with each coming album... kinda the way Green Day did it with "American Idiot" and the Chili Peppers with "Californication". I think there are moments of brilliance on the album... two of my favorite moments are the little digression type singing in "Severed Hand" that goes "if I don't lose control... explore and not explode... and so on. The other is the mid song rant in "Marker in the Sand" where the guitars kick back up to speed and Ed rattles off "I feel a sickness, a sickness coming over me... like watching freedom"... and so on... those moments remind me of PJ at their best.

Not that I dislike the new album, I would actually say I like it a lot... but it is just frustrating to me because it seems like the gear from good to classic could have been hit if a little more atttention was payed to certain production or arrangement type things. That being said, I am coming to love the first 5 song explosion on the record.


I'm curious to know how the album has been received by some of you. Anyone else think it would have been cool if the album opened with "Wasted Reprise" and led into "Life Wasted"?