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 An epic, apocalyptic guitar solo swoops and
soars, crashing against tortured vocal as, in a voice imitated a
thousand times since, Eddie Vedder proclaims ‘I’m still alive’.
This was the outstanding brilliance of ‘Alive’, the highlight of seminal
Seattle band Pearl Jam’s classic debut, ‘Ten’.
Though Vedder & Co. have never quite reached such excellence again, in
the fifteen years that have passed since the glory days of ‘Ten’, the
boys have produced some cracking work such as ‘Vs’ and ‘Vitology’.
However, they’ve also produced some guff too, in the form of ‘No Code’
and ‘Yield’.
What’s most disappointing about this, their eponymous eighth studio
release, is that it’s neither one nor the other, sitting comfortably
somewhere in the middle of the road.
That’s not to say that this is a bad album. On the contrary, there are
some great, crunching rock songs here. Songs such as recent single
‘World Wide Suicide’ and the rambunctious ‘Severed Hand’ that serve as a
kick up the backside to the throngs of pretenders and challengers to
Pearl Jam’s throne as undisputed kings of hard rock.
Even when the band, completed by Jeff Arment on bass, former Soundgarden
man Matt Cameron on drums and the dual guitar attack of Stone Gossard
and Mike McCreedy, aren’t full of aggression and rage against the Bush
administration, they’re still rather pleasant. Slow numbers such as
‘Parachutes’, that for all the world sounds like it’d be right at home
on a latter-day ‘Beatles LP make a nice break from all the vehemence.
Indeed, the problem with this album isn’t that it contains bad songs.
Indeed, played on their own, each one of these tracks is decent. No, the
problem here is that, as enjoyable as this album is, it’s nothing
special, and with a band as legendary as Pearl Jam, ‘special’ is exactly
what you’d expect. Pearl Jam may still be alive, but they’re certainly
not kicking.
Recommended Links:
www.pearljam.com – Pearl Jam’s official website
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