I just really like the idea of longer songs. This band does really well when the band can breathe a little, as in Not For You, Present Tense, and Nothing As It Seems. Not that I dislike the shorter songs, but many of my favorites come in at 5 mins or more.

mmm, you and me and that stick...
I been baaad, officer, real baaad!

This was the studio version, but I'm sure the people at UTUBE listened to it....hated it....and took it down.

I can hopefully love this record and at best live with it.

Either way no matter what happens, please god let them branch out and explore new sounds and a new direction from a new different producer on the next record.

Doubt this is gonna leak until about a week before release, so don't get your hopes up.

At this point I would like to them just release new music more than once every 10 years. Thanks.

Welp, sounds like some of my quibbles with Backspacer continue.

Interested to hear 4-5 of these songs.

I agree with dime, it would be awesome if they went to a new forward-thinking producer on the next album. But I'm kind of bored at this point of slagging off BO'B, because yeah, we will hear his cheesy influence on this record somewhere but if we're not careful, it'll blind us to the good stuff. I'm wanting to see if it's a satisfying listen. I'm wanting to give it a chance to be the eclectic, flawed but very satisfying album that it could be.

I find that I can live with some of his production techniques if the song either isn't effected or I like it in the first place. Take FoN or SoS, both of those tracks have some awful production decisions but I can live with them as I think the songs are okay.

LEAKED!















not.

Pitchfork score: 4.2

But working with a different producer, and not a radical change either, would be interesting. Maybe an old school guy like Glyn Johns or his son Ethan Johns, or maybe Jimmy Iovine. Someone who isn't going to spook the horses.

Absolutely. Me too. And for all that I don't really want another bright, poppy record, this guy does have a talent for a crisp, clean production that makes every instrument audible. And sometimes the stuff he does in the background is real ear candy. The Fixer is a great example, where even if you don't like the song, you can't deny that there are some luscious sounds in that mix. Whether you like that sort of thing is another question altogether, of course, but it's definitely not terrible production. I think the message we're getting from the band is that they don't *want* a No Code production at this point. There's no point slamming BO'B if that's a decision PJ are deliberately making.

Very true. And PJ's track record says that what they release is entirely and wholeheartedly what they want to release.

And my hope is that if they want to carry on, what they want to release will change in time, as it has since their beginning. So even if I don't like their current era much, there's every chance it's just the current PJ phase. Or they'll just end the band. So either way, the pain (if you feel any) will be short lived.

Containing 1x songs that ultimately Ed gets to choose.

1x songs?