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If its debut album 15 years ago made Pearl Jam apprehensive with success, the Seattle quintet better buckle in for a return to eminence. On its eighth studio release--and first since 2002--the band socks away the adventurous experimentation that dogged some of its most recent records to investigate a post-September 11, war-ravagJ
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If its debut album 15 years ago made Pearl Jam apprehensive with success, the Seattle quintet better buckle in for a return to eminence. On its eighth studio release--and first since 2002--the band socks away the adventurous experimentation that dogged some of its most recent records to investigate a post-September 11, war-ravaged world overflowing with urgency and significance. "It's the same everyday in a hell manmade/What can be saved, and who will be left to hold her?" lead singer Eddie Vedder wonders in "World Wide Suicide," one of several contemptuous rants on the Bush administration. Yet the album's spark is more than political. Songs like "Life Wasted," "Comatose" and "Big Wave" embrace the garage-rock past, as guitarists Mike McCready and Stone Gossard play off each other with the primal lucidity of a decade ago and drummer Matt Cameron, one of rock's best, adds raw backing vocals to Vedder's polished craft. But Pearl Jam also turns up some of its most harmonious works since "Daughter," including "Marker in the Sand," with its radio-ready chorus, the tuneful "Parachutes" paced by Gossard's divine strumming, and the burning narrative and Urge Overkill punch of "Umemployable." Finally Vedder pleads for a lover's return in "Come Back," a keyboard-soaked love song complete with a chilling Gossard solo. It's got a soulfulness that begs for Sam Cooke to sing it and an originality that shows that a vibrant and cocksure Pearl Jam is back in town--and ready to retake the world. --Scott Holter
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"Pearl Jam go right back to a that is some mix of Vs/Vitalogy/Yield with this album. It's like being transported back to the 90s; in a good way, I suppose. It's a little shocking coming right after Riot Act and the little arty flourishes are missing, which is to the album's detriment. At times feels like the band has overdone the hard driving sound a little, but the feeling passes after repeated listens."
"This one not only gets me but my mother as well. Every time I hear the line "I know someday you'll have a beautiful life, I know you'll be a star In somebody else's sky, but why, why, why Can't it be, can't it be mine." I'm done for.
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Bad☆Alice added this to a list 1 year, 8 months ago
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Feels like: Something you'd hear at the high school dance in "Back To The Future."
Is actually about: A guy takes his woman out on a date, and they are in a horrific car crash. He lives, she dies in his arms.
Dead giveaway: "I lifted her head, she looked at me and said, 'Hold me darling, just a little while.' I held her close, I kissed her our last kiss...I lost my love, my life that night.""
Bad☆Alice added this to a list 1 year, 8 months ago
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Bad Alice's Alphabet of Song *O*
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