By MIKE ROSS, EDMONTON SUN




PEARL JAM

Self-titled

Sony-BMG

3 out of 5

- - -

<A HREF="http://ads5.canoe.ca/event.ng/Type=click%26FlightID=27697%26AdID=53228%26TargetID=2939%26Segments=2371,4176,5882,6026,6038,6082,6094,6137,7542,9314%26Targets=439,6132,4362,4776,2580,6232,2939,4870%26Values=25,30,50,60,72,82,93,100,110,150,155,213,255,272,332,334,342,343,344,345,363,379,380,396,493,860,1281,1304,1315,1445,1467,1544,1947,2292,2307,2402,2540,2553,2580,2584,2686,2698,2700,2702,2789,3070,3079,3148,3562%26RawValues=USERID%2C7f000001-14582-1146556797-1%26Redirect=http://www.dodge.ca/en/sprinter/" target="_top"><IMG SRC="http://imageads.canoe.ca/Canoe/Chrysler/Dodge%20Sprinter%20April/300x250_Dodge_Sprinter_config_EN.GIF" WIDTH=300 HEIGHT=250 BORDER=0></A>

A self-titled album in the middle of a career can mean one of two things:

1. Band is proclaiming a bold new direction to get back to what it meant to make music before all this annoying fame came along.

2. Band has run out of ideas.

The new album called Pearl Jam by the band named Pearl Jam is a little of both. That is to say, it's hit and miss. It's in stores Tuesday.

Mainly, it sounds like they tried too hard. It sounds like they came up with a few raucous riffs to give this the prize of "hardest rocking" Pearl Jam record in at least 10 years, but in most cases couldn't build memorable songs around them. In most cases. I liked Worldwide Suicide the first 100 times I heard it on the radio. I tip my hat at Eddie Vedder's lyrical gifts, for lines like, "Now you got both sides claiming killing in God's name, but God is nowhere to be found, conveniently."

I appreciate the effort it must've taken to spin a comment about dependence on oil into Gone, which is otherwise one of these lonely wanderlust songs we can all relate to. Eddie moans with a fragile vibrato, "When the gas in my tank feels like money in the bank, gonna blow it all this time, take me one last ride." I like that Pearl Jam can channel the Doors in the angry punk rocker Comatose, Eddie's grit-teeth wail of "Feel it rising!" roughly equivalent to Jim Morrison's "Mr. Mojo rising!" As long as we're on the subject of influences, I swear the first guitar lick in Unemployable is the same as the one in Don't Fear the Reaper. Also, Pearl Jam evokes the Beatles tripping over their boots in the choppy love song Parachutes.

Pearl Jam - both the band and the album - is thick, heavy, political, Led Zeppelinesque, Who-ish, experimental, it is many things. What it is not is fun. This is a classic example of rock 'n' roll as serious business. They seem to say: Who has time for fun when the world is in such a sorry state and we're the deep-thinking modern rock heroes everyone is expecting further greatness from? We were great once. Remember?

So wipe that smirk off your face and dig into another fibre-bulked serving of Pearl Jam. It's good for you.