This isn't in Stip's Review thread, and I guess this is how you make him aware of a new review (I don't know, maybe not?).
Anyway, here it is:

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Critics' Choice
New CD's: Examining Identities

By THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: May 1, 2006

Pearl Jam
"Pearl Jam"
(J Records)

There's something obstinate and honorable about Pearl Jam. After selling millions of albums in the 1990's, Pearl Jam has long since sloughed off the parts of its music that were most palatable to radio stations — grunge power chords, choruses full of anthemic angst — and left them in the hands of MTV-friendly bands that already sound like 1990's nostalgia acts. "Once dissolved we are free to grow," Eddie Vedder sings in "Severed Hand," a grungy garage-rock song on the band's first studio album since 2002, "Pearl Jam."

Instead of chasing pop-chart success, Pearl Jam now hones the two-guitar grappling of Stone Gossard and Mike McCready, lets Mr. Vedder stay as tortured, self-righteous or inscrutable as he wishes, makes studio albums on its own timetable and tours regularly to arena crowds. Take them or leave them, like a latter-day Grateful Dead, they're not going out of their way to ingratiate themselves and they're not going away.

"Pearl Jam" comes on like a fireball. Most of the songs — like "World Wide Suicide," a bitter, furious tirade about a soldier's death and the prospect of endless war — are fast and noisy, although the album pauses now and then for songs like "Parachutes," which suggests a John Lennon ballad with some skipped and added beats.

Pearl Jam is now grounded as much in 1960's garage-rock and the psychedelic turbulence of Jefferson Airplane as in metal or punk. Mr. Vedder's lyrics have death, war, morality and faith very much on their mind — with a digression on surfing in "Big Wave" — and he's not offering many answers. But arguments with himself are incarnated in the way the guitars squabble, the meter turns irregular and the song structures take off on tangents.

Now as ever, Pearl Jam takes itself seriously. But it delivers that seriousness not with the sodden self-importance of rock superstardom, but with the craft and hunger of a band still proving itself on the spot.

JON PARELES

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/01/arts/ ... 1choi.html

thanks for posting. I'll stick it up

nice review

I like how he calls Ed, "Mr. Vedder".

Yeah, I like it a lot.

I especially like the "fireball" comment.

I also really like this: "Take them or leave them, like a latter-day Grateful Dead, they're not going out of their way to ingratiate themselves and they're not going away."

There's more I like, but I guess that's why it's a great review.

Yeah, that too!

So much different than that Jim DeRogatis dipshit! He had to try and degrade Ed (and his lyrics) by calling him a "surfer dude". Fuck him!

that's the new york times style. everyone is Mr. (insert last name).

why didnt they put Mr. McCready?

only after first reference does it become Mr.

Good question, Mr. CankKeepFukinUp!

It is. But that's a good/respectful style.

To try and dismiss Eddie (and his ideas/lyrics) by calling him a "surfer dude" pisses me off to no end. The NY Times is above that, and I like it.

thats Sir. CantKeepFukinUp to you

Great fucking review. Thanks for posting. NY Times is truely one of the best at reviews. NY times critics have won several Pulitzers in various entertainment fields. At least in the U.S., I think we can say the new record is a smashing success with the critics. Sometimes it is nice to have things you love validated, although my own opinion is much more important.