3.8 out of 5

By Kevin Forest Moreau

Three and a half years ago in this space, I delivered a negative review of Pearl Jam's last album, Riot Act. That review generated the most hate mail we've ever received here at Shaking Through World Headquarters -- a barrage of outrage that I discussed in no less than two separate editorials. In fact, I so enraged one particular PJ fan that he took to sending me hateful emails under separate accounts, so that I wouldn't recognize his e-mail address and thus delete the mail without opening it. So baffled was he at my failure to recognize Pearl Jam as the greatest band ever that he even sent along a USA Today poll that apparently showed more respondents liking Pearl Jam than Nirvana. (If he recognized the irony or humor in holding up a USA Today poll as unassailable proof of Pearl Jam's superiority, he didn't let on.)

Because of that kind of feedback, the churlish bastard in me was prepared to dismiss Pearl Jam's new self-titled album -- its first for J Records after a lifetime at Epic -- out of hand. But credit where credit's due: The band hasn't sounded this focused, enthusiastic and energized since 1998's underrated Yield. Like that record, Pearl Jam rebounds from a less-than-spectacular effort with a set that combines the anthemic accessibility of the band's early hits with the damn-the-torpedoes, wing-stretching vibe of its less-well-received efforts.

The string of confident rockers that kick off the disc recall the passion and poise of 1994's Vitalogy, from the resolute "Life Wasted" to the shambolic "World Wide Suicide" through to the gear-shifting "Marker in the Sand," but even in this listener-friendly opening salvo, the riffs and choruses nod to the choppier rhythms and less-than-smooth time changes the band has embraced in recent years. By dint of their loose-limbed urgency, these five songs also illuminate frontman Eddie Vedder's pointed lyrics, which on "Marker" and "Suicide" roar without preciousness (or, worse, rock-star self-righteousness) against the current state of affairs here and in Iraq.

The middle stretch following "Marker in the Sound" isn't as immediate in its sonic gratification, although there's nothing that inspires the listener to skip ahead. But soon after "Wasted," a brief, slow-dance reprise of the chorus of "Life Wasted," Pearl Jam regains momentum, if not speed, with a pair of insistent closing tracks, the familiar ballad "Come Back" (with its faint echoes of "Black" and "Yellow Ledbetter"), featuring one of Vedder's most assured vocal performances in years, and the similarly subtle "Inside Job," coasting on a bed of piano and washes of tremolo guitar before building into a low-key singalong chorus.

These two numbers sound like a soothing, MOR nod to the mainstream listeners who made the band the biggest act in the world around the time of Vs., underlining the album's successful synthesis of old-fashioned arena-rock uplift and latter-day experimentation. Only time will tell whether Pearl Jam returns the band to a pop-cultural relevance it doesn't seem overly concerned with attaining, but it's a pleasant surprise for those who feared that the group's glory days were long gone.

3.8 out of 5. That's an odd scale. I wonder what made it better than a 3.7 but not quite a 3.9

nice review

very nice, thanks for posting!

I quite agree with that.