VinylGuy wrote:Oh Army Reserveeee i love you so much. The groove. I love how distant yet present the guitars are in this spotify mix. Its like you have three layers and they are all in different volume levels. The background vocals are so much better an noticeable.
Is mike doing those little patterns with the guitar? Those are beautiful. Again Matt is super tight and yet loose.
Gave the Spotify version of this a spin the other night with headphones, it was an album I loved when it came out but i've not really gone back to it much over the years, so was good to hear it with fresh ears. Takeaway was that overall it's still a good album, very solid and laid the basis for most of what they've done over the last 14 years, for better or worse.
Life Wasted - not a song I've ever connected with, good riff, that's about it.
WWS - Man, I loved this when it came out, I'm not sure it's held up that well over the years. Ed's fucking horrid Guitar tone really ruined this for me.
Comatose - A good punchy (or should that be spritzy?) rocker, solid front to back, and Ed sounds like latter day Ed while still nailing the vocal, something I'd say he's struggled to do even on record since.
Severed Hand - Loved it when it came out, kind of lost a bit of interest in recent years, but I really liked this here. The song really sounded massive, good, crunchy guitars throughout, although I did think the outro needed Mike's solo cranked up, it should have cut through the mix and elevated the song but it's buried in there.
Marker - Actually really liked this, I thought that by the fifth rocker in a row this would sound quite tired, but it was pretty great, loved the organ flourishes over the outro too that another poster mentioned.
Parachutes - It's a bit of an outlier in terms of the general feel of the album, a simple, pretty song, Ed sings it really well. I really wish Stone would contribute more songs, pretty sure he's averaging 1-2 an album at best since Avocado, and I always think his songs have something interesting and different going on, even if they don't always fully hit the mark.
Unemployable - I see this getting a bit of hate, always loved it, the guitars sound great.
Big Wave - Totally get the B-side argument with this, but taking it on face value as a throwaway 3 min rocker I thought it actually worked quite well, the back half of the album would have dragged a lot more without this to pick up the pace.
Gone - For an Ed composition, this had a pretty nice soaring vocal in the chorus that I had kind of forgotten about. I'm not sure it's better than the original solo demo though. A few bells and whistles but I'm not convinced the song is better for it.
Wasted Reprise - Meh. It's a reprise of a song I don't like, it's over in a minute, but it did act as a nice palate cleanser for Army Reserve.
Army Reserve - This was the MVP of the record on this listen for me. Everything the above poster said and more. One of the few songs I don't think they've ever bettered live than on record.
Come Back - I think this is probably the start of the trend that led to the 'Just Breathe' type crap that Ed shits out at will, although I've always had a soft spot for this live. On record the vocal doesn't have enough intimacy in the mix to sell the sentiment convincingly, and I'd argue that the biggest fade-out crime on record was this, as after 5 mins+ of muddling along it finally starts to take off and they clip it. I know BOB is an easy target, especially in light of Gigaton, but whoever decided this is a fucking idiot.
Inside Job - It's missing a monster solo to see it out but it's still a solid song.
Overall I still think this is a solid effort front to back, and I think it does definitely get a little unfairly lumped in with the two albums that followed it. That being said, for me personally, Yield through Riot Act were a great mixed bag of contributions and collaborations from the whole band which always made for interesting listens, and is almost certainly the reason I keep going back to them. This was the album where they made a choice to gentrify the sound for a more cohesive record, and with Ed at the wheel, they lost something I don't think they'll ever get back for me personally, and is probably why I haven't gone back for many repeat listens over the years.