I too gave PGs a rest for the past fortnight and listened to other artists none of them DD or the PGs album for that matter and it's totally ironic that skinburns thread concededly was posted.
I played PGs the other day and it felt complete as a concept. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder.
Crazy and cliche I know yet how true for me in this case.
It felt like home it felt like DD.
It sounded fuller, more complete and as the careful listener I am, just when I thought I was as familiar with PGs as I could get, I'm picking up new sounds as in RTs high hat not noticed before, NRs twiddle or a swirl here there and from outa nowhere while JTs bass was also deeper.
I'm not going nuts and I ain't brainwashed either, as it is there are still two tracks on PGs I'm still having trouble with.
Nevertheless as a DD die hard enthusiast (as many of us are) I was most pleasantly surprised.
Honestly I have a new found respect for PGs as a sound scape and what it stands for even though having already appreciated 80% of it previously.
Can't recall another DD album offering a similar effect since Astronaut. Don't get me wrong I love Astronaut and AYNIN however when I hear those releases I know exactly what it is I will hear and when I'll hear it.
PGs up until today is somewhat different. Time will tell I guess and I can't say now what it is I'll feel in a years time coz I cannot see or tell the future.
When the time comes it comes and I'll be able to answer it then.
I kinda get where the tracks are coming or are derived/influenced from ad the album artwork implies.
For instance I can imagine The universe alone perhaps on Medazzaland, PO and OIDs on Notorious (Niles rhythm guitar) is totally all there, LNITC and YKMWS perhaps on Red Carpet M, BGirl on Pop Trash, Face for today on 7&RT, PGs on Big Thing and Danceophobia on RIO, (listen to 'my own way' the frivolous party vibe is all there) and WATC on the wedding album etc.
Yeah they could do with a little more of the first DD album and Thank You yes I said Thank You, simply for the sake of some organic power but hey fingers crossed maybe no.15.
I kinda get that for the album to be signed by Warner Bros it had to sound this way (modern chart appeal) otherwise our DD boys would have gone with another independent release. Warner never signed AYNIN. Did they, do you think DD never presented AYNIN to Warner........Of course they would have.
Remember what Sony said to them when they took Reportage to them, go work with Timbaland and the other.............JT
Aside from the AT issues they were undergoing, Sony couldn't hear a radio track and this was in 2006 or is that 2007. To this day which one of us has heard Reportage ?
Please share whoever has.
For the record my 2 favourite DD albums are RIO and Medazzaland and in fact the later is the only DD album I can listen to in its entirety without skipping a single track.
Yet, What do I know? except for what it is my ears hear and how unwillingly they process DDs new release thereby leading towards my honest personal descriptive opinion.
After all I can't contrive what my heart and mind tell me
That's my opinion anyway.