Alternative Press , December 2002, Issue #173
Grunge lifers continue to plow the same ground - and it's still somewhat fertile.
Unless you're a member of the Ten Club, does anyone still care about Pearl Jam? Okay, beforesaid club members call their lowyers, let me ask another question. Can one of the most influential bands of '90s remain important while voluntarily turning their backs on the fundementals of musical dissipation (radio airplay, video exposure, magazine interviews, etc.)? With the release of Pearl Jam seventh studio album Riot Act, the answer is an emphatic yes.
The times, they are a changin', but just like a good bottle of wine, Pearl Jam get better with age, you could say that the current garage-rock boom might just be the new millennium's modernized version of the grunge movement. However, for a band who escaped the pigeonhole of a now-moribund genre relatively unsathed, Pearl Jam prove that remaining true to a sound doesn't have to be formulaic or uninspired.
In songs like "All Or None", "Save You" and "I Am Mine", Eddie Vedder poignontly chronicles the lives of disaffected youth everywhere.
In mood, style and tone, Riot Act sounds like every other Pearl Jam record, but this is not necessarily a bad thing. Listening to Pearl Jam is like revisiting an old high-school yearbook; underneath the bad hair and even worse outfits, you're reminded of the person you were and the person you always wanted to be.
(Epic)
Leslie Simon.
This is one of them the last grunge band, survivor thingys for the first paragraph but then it gets better. From Mediajonez.com
RA review
A decade ago, when Pearl Jam released their debut album, Ten, they became one of the most relevant bands of the day and gave voice to thousands of disaffected youth. The impact the band made on popular music and just what it means to be a rock star continues to reverberate through the countless brooding rock singers that have since emerged (calling Scott Stapp - you will never be Eddie Vedder). But while the band's legacy lit a bright and ever-burning lamp, the group itself has fallen on darker days, partly of its own making.
The Pearl Jam of today has seen it's fan base erode as it made a series of albums which seemed to consciously defy the formula that made them popular. While some of their best work, Vitology for example, went unappreciated by critics, they have made some unfocused music as well (Yield, Binaural) which made it seem the band was in its latter days. Their low public profile hasn't helped either, making the group seem like a non-entity except for their unprecedented release of, like, a billion live albums. All this is why Riot Act is so refreshing.
One thing that is immediately clear on Riot Act is that Pearl Jam has remembered how to rock! There is a lot of energy in most these songs, especially in the guitar playing of Stone Gossard and Mike McCready. The fiery riff from "Save You" is pure garage punk, straight out of the MC5 vein. "Love Boat Captain", despite it's ridiculous title, is a powerful song that builds from a solemn organ and vocal soliloquy into a charging anthem, and shows off the band's unique skill at changing gears in mid-groove. By the time the chorus kicks in, the music is so uplifting it's energy is instantly transferred to the listener. "Get Right" and "Green Disease" also stand out as incendiary examples of fine riff-rock.
Where the album falls short is in the lyrical focus. Were many of these songs supported by deeper, more emotionally-affecting lyrics, they could easily become classics. This is somewhat disappointing considering this is the guy who brought us "Black", "Betterman" and "Immortality". The persona Eddie projects in most of his songs is consistently the berated, misunderstood loner, but sometimes it would be helpful to get more clarity than that single point of view. For the most part, the voice is coming from some obscure place that, while you get the general idea of what he's saying, he only occasionally says anything that sticks into your heart and makes an impression. But when he does, it's pure Vedder. "Don't see some men as half-empty/See them half-full of shit," he sings on "1/2 Full", bearing the full weight of his signature world-weariness.
There are some engaging moments on Riot Act, however, where the roots of the band's greatness come through. "I Am Mine" is a Neil Young-influenced semiballad similar to "Red Mosquito" from No Code. It's got a great melody and emotive lead guitar from Gossard. "Thumbing My Way" is one of the most poignant songs, rich with rustic ambience and lyrical intimacy as good as you'll find on a Pearl Jam record. The closer, in true PJ form, is the haunting "All or None", which follows in the tradition of the slow benediction of "Indifference" and "Around The Bend" from past albums. Eddie's voice sounds its best here, and is matched by an incredible wailing guitar solo from McCready.
The only throwaway tracks are "Arc", which is more of a vocal study in Indian chanting (and only lasts a minute), and the regrettable "Bushleager", an inside-joke stab at Dubya that is as useless as it is humorless. It falls into the same category of Pearl Jam tracks as "Bugs" or "Heyfoxymophandlemama It's Me" - studio hijinx and little else. Overall, Riot Act is a strong set from a band that needed to put up or shut up, but will have still have to live up to the expectation's of Ten's stalwart fans.
http://www.metaluk.com/index.cfm/FuseAction/ChoiceCuts.htm
Kerrang!
Pearl Jam are on of the most important bands in rock. fact. while the copmmercial nu-metal set don their blinkers and bust themselves re-hashing korn's first two album's for mass consumption, and the pop-punk world focusues itself squarely on the matter of u.s high school dating rituals, only a few bands dare to tread into the musical minefield that its social commentary. pearl jam are at the head of that pack. but riot act is by no means a r.a.t.m style full-on political rock album - in fact its a record that manages to analyse both the carnage and turmoil of the world post 9/11 and the inner torment that comes comes with day to day human existence. 'its already been sung, but it can't be said enough, all you need is love', croons ed, on love boat captain.
the fact that pearl jam are still around in any form at all is quite astounding. they've survived a huge legal battle with ticketmaster, numerous personal crsises and a mid career sales lull to find themselves where they are today, in many ways the biggest cult act in the world today. but what's even more incredible is that they are still pushing their boundaries, refusing to rest on their laurels. and whilst they already have a mind blowing arsenal of great songs in their back catalogue, you get the feeling that they still have their best album up their sleeves. this isn't quite it, but its a fascinating musical journey none the less.
in term of sound and spirit, pearl jam are still looking to the neil young back catalogue as their bible. youngs influence is most apparent on the likes of save you, 1/2 full and ghost - driving, fuzzy rock numbers that are as passionate as they are noisy. but far from embracing middle age by easing into blues rock tedium, vedder's troops have all sorts of ideas bursting to come to the fore. take you are, with its odd, gently filthy groove, packed with guitar effects, later giving way to a bridge of piano and harmony laden beauty. whearas bushleaguer is a mianly spoken word number with a strange languid chorus and it finds vedder rambling almost impenetrably about how people with power are often those with the least clue as to how to use it, 'the haves have not a clue', he concludes.
while the noisier, weirder songs reassure us that pearl jam are far from a spent force, it is when they relax and let the melodies flow that they truly reach another level. 'love boat captain; is the first of these moments, rolling oin on a sombre organ motif and building to an uplifting finale. the whole album, however, pivots around the centrepiece of the single 'i am mine' and following track 'thumbing my way'. the former is a stunningly produced counterpart to the likes of daughter and e.w.b.t.c.i.a.s.t, while the latter is possible the most most beautiful pearl jam ballad ever.
pearl jam have managed to create a niche that fits them perfectly. they are a stadium band, but with a fiercely independent attitude; a band that posesses one of the largest fan bases in the world, and yet has freed itself from being the centre of everyones attention. they go about their business in their own way, and as a result have managed to retain the sense of excitement that comes with maming music in new and interesting ways, and inspiring other people.
this album puts all those elements together like an intricate jigsaw puzzle;its occasionally aggressive, more often reflective. their are wierd off-kilter punk rock tunes, and lilting soothing ballads showing off vedder's rich warbling tones. there are songs of love, songs of loss, songs of protest and songs of hope. no emotional or musical stones is left unturned, and you can't really ask for any more than that.
4/5
KKK
Kerrang! 937, October 26, 2002
ALTHOUGH HE opted for a somewhat extreme method, Kurt Cobain was right to end Nirvana when he died. The thought of plodding along in plaid like Pearl Jam was too much to bear for the poor mite. At best telorable, Vedder's mob have always represented the dull end of corporate angst rock, lacking both the bite of Nirvana or the true grit of, say, Mark Legan. Their career-long stance on keeping their music affordable for fans is admirable, but their musical policy sucks like an Electrolux. ' I AM MINE' is the sound of ageing men flailing and is, in actuality, not a million miles from the sound of Ronan Keating pulling on his denims and 'going rock'. And let's not forget, this is the band responsible for all these unberable, groaning parasites currently giving rock a bad name. It's almost as though grunge never happened ...
NME, 26 October 2002
It hasn't been easy for Pearl Jam. They might be The Strokes' favourite group now, but a decade ago they duked it out with Nirvana for possession of your souls, and lost. Now, as they got ready to release what's being applauded as their best album in some time - wallop - a Nirvana greatest hits LP. Bugger. However, this is all grist to the mill because 'I Am Mine' is a great song. Not a 'woe-is-me, you don't understand my inner pain' grunge song, but a 'world spins oddly and i'm finding my place in it' song. It's beyond anything that the new rock revolutionaries are presently pitching, and oddly refreshing for that.
(PMcN)
Taken from TOP, Uk & Eire - February 1998
They're not pearls, they don't jam and their music's shite. It's Pearl Jam And they're going to get a pasting......
Who in auntie Nora's smelly grogs are they?
Well they basically comprise of four non-entities (i say, a bit mean) - Dave Abruzzese (drums), Mike McCready (guitar), Stone Gossard (guitar) And Jeff Ament (bass) - and the ho-so-agonised, ever-so-much-more famous Eddie Vedder.
Vedder? Sounds like a vacuum appliance? What exactly is it that he's famous for?
In blightly, mainly for not "jumping the gun" on his old pal Kurt Cobain and splattering his rettled grey matter all over his garage. In the States, the whole sorry bunch of them are famed for their straggering record sales - their debut effort Ten (1991) went five-times platinum (gracious me).
Why not so gorgeously prolific and megastar-like over here?
They're crap.
Ouch. Why such an off-hand dismissal of an 'important' musical autfit? Surely Mr V oozes the kind of pain that makes Janis Joplin look like Wendy Craig (housewife in the abomination that was Butterflies)?
The only pain Vedder's going to experience is our boot on his sphincter. Check out these lyrical pearls of infinite wisdom on Alive: "Ho i ho, i'm still alive/ hey, i, i, ho, i'm still alive/ Hey, i, ho, i'm still alive/ Hey.... ho."
Oh, i, hey, wippee, woah, like cool, yeah. NO.
This most famous dittie concludes with the following deeply-wrought Dylanesque, nay Youngesque, profundity: "Hey i, but, i'm still alive/ Yeah, i, oooh, i'm still alive/ Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah."
Why mention Neil Young?
'Cause the dishevelled old codger completely out-performed and out-rocked the Jammers, while playing with them on the MTV Music Awards.
Is it true that they get more MTV exposure than Pamela Anderson's balloons?
Yes. They're large. In fact, at the time of that excruciatingly wearing single Jeremy, Pearl Jam were seemingly rotated more often than a Mancester City manager.
Not to be confused with?
The Jam (Woking mod lads with confused crops) or the far superior and sadly lamented Pearl and Dean signature tune (recentely re-jigged by P and D's head honchos) - "pa-pah pa-pah pa-pah pa-pah pa pa pa ......paaahhh PAH!"
May be Vedder could do something with the classic cinema crowd-pleaser?
"Pa-pah pa-pah ho pa, i, yeah, yeah, woah, yeah, pa-pah, yeah woah/ ohh ohh ohh ooh pa alive yeah."
Doesn't make a blind bit of sense does it?
Never stopped Vedder before.
Why are we discussing these people?
They're released their fourth morose monstrosity, No Code, and a new single Who You Are.
What are they like?
Fraught diabolical ramblings and mumblings about "transcendental consequences" that are about as relevant to our lives as The Plague.
Yes, but where can you pour your venom upon these charlatans?
Just write to Ten/Vitalogy Health Club, PO Box 4570, Seattle, WA 98104, or phone the not-so-hotline in US on (001) 206 728 7078.
Released by Epic, Pearl Jam's new album No Code is unfortunately out there now.
What do u think?????
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