Since I think Stip said he is going to be gone this weekend, I'll put any new reviews in this thread, unless it's a semi-important one like Spin, Mojo or Blender.

Spins!
RELISH
PEARL JAM
Ed Bumgardner and Michael Hewlitt, relish staff writers

11 May 2006
Winston-Salem Journal
METRO

Pearl Jam

Label: J Records

If you like: Stripped-down rock with passion and purpose

Song to download: "Life Wasted"

*** 1/2

Think of Pearl Jam, the new album by Pearl Jam, as a refinement of place, identity, performance and purpose. The band was never really part of Seattle's grunge movement of the 1990s - it was a victim of geography, and its music had less to do with punkish squall than the tuneful purpose of rock's older icons.

Experience and survival fuel Pearl Jam, an album that all but cements Pearl Jam's identity as a no-frills rock band - and a fine one at that. An assault-force rhythm section allows plenty of room for guitarists Stone Gossard and Mick McCready to slash away and trade punches. There's no fat to be trimmed, no spackle to be scraped, no overwrought widdly-woo to be found. Every note has purpose.

Pearl Jam has never been a band to expend time and energy on disposable sentiment and cheap cliches. Vocalist Eddie Vedder is less singer than soldier, a catalyst for change, a voice that rails with righteous indignation against forces of injustice and darkness.

So it's no surprise that Pearl Jam revolves around the state of wartime America, with Vedder playing the role of an unrepentant contrarian who prefers to tackle the Big Picture than expend energy pointing fingers. He rails against the moral hypocrisy and political shortcomings of Fat Cat America, and he paints detailed, sympathetic portraits of the often-dire consequences of such behavior.

It's an angry album, well written, powerfully executed and the most musically varied of Pearl Jam's career. Better still, the message is not so much a call for arms against a corrupt empire, but an empathetic message to the world - we're all in this together, and, if we stand together, there is hope.

Pearl Jam is older, wiser, better - and more important than ever.

Pearl Jam


By Andrew Murfett
May 12, 2006

Incensed lyrics and a primal sense of urgency from Pearl Jam.
Pearl Jam: At last, more than a handful of compelling songs.


Artist
Pearl Jam
Genre
Rock, Alternative/Indie
Label
J Records/Sony BMG

Each of the three albums Pearl Jam have released since their 1996 classic No Code have mistakenly been hailed as a return to form by critics. With their self-titled eighth studio album there is finally some truth in the declaration.

No Code, released after three brilliant, big-selling records ( Ten, VS and Vitalogy), saw the band's album sales dramatically slump. These days, although still able to sell-out Rod Laver Arena - three times over the last time they toured - their days of blockbuster album sales have passed. And that seems to be just how the Seattle quintet likes it.

While each post- No Code record has had its charms, recent PJ records have been brooding, low-key collections with a smattering of great tracks.

Their first album since 2002's patchy Riot Act, Pearl Jam pares back the now-familiar unkempt guitars and howling vocals, although the incensed lyrics remain, along with a primal sense of urgency. At last, there are also more than a handful of compelling songs.

The bustling first three tracks ( Life Wasted, World Wide Suicide and the breakneck Comatose) and the strikingly melancholic Parachutes and Marker in the Sand leave an immediate impression. Sure, Pearl Jam are as anti-war as ever but it's not all verbose fury. Army Reserve is personal and heartfelt, registering the anxiety of the parents and children of soldiers. Stunning album highlights Come Back and Inside Job, the two closing tracks, build slowly and offer optimism and veracity.

Alternative-rock, as an adjective, long ago became redundant. Countless bands have tried to duplicate their classic-rock-goes-grunge sound (most lamentably, Scott Stapp), yet PJ are one of the last genuine alternative major label acts.

The anthemic angst that was once the hallmark of their radio hits such as Better Man, Black and Daughter is almost nonexistent and you could readily argue the band has remained a tad too earnest. Still, they fearlessly stand up for what they believe in and, finally, they have created another great album.

Pearl Jam back with a bang

Pearl Jam is back with their first album of original material in nearly four years with this new self-titled release, the eighth in their catalogue. To be honest, I can’t believe this album is as good as it is.

Thankfully, the whole overrated “grunge” movement was but a mere speck of time in rock history, and has now passed us by. Bands like Pearl Jam and Nirvana ushered in an age of diminished expectations and lower musical standards, and I thought this would be just another “some things never change” album, but it is just as good as one of their stand out songbooks, “Yield.”

The opening and single “Life Wasted” is one of the best tracks, right under “World Wide Suicide” which is a kind of gritty anti-war anthem venting the frustration of the futility of war without sounding preachy or over the top political like Green Day or System of a Down.

After a five-song set of guitar heavy, aggressive tunes, the album ventures into acoustic and ballad type territory, but what’s Pearl Jam without acoustic ballads?

This album shows PJ at their finest with some more new firsts for the band. Eddie Vedder, in particular, reveals some new vocal styles.

A great rock album that Pearl Jam fans will be sure to enjoy.

Sounding off: Pearl Jam
by Nicholas Olig, of the Advance Titan
Issue: Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Added: 5/9/2006 11:16:39 PM

Fifteen years ago, in an ambivalent baritone chorus Eddie Vedder declared, “I’m still alive.” In the mean time, fads such as goatee metal rap and bastardized alternative/ Christian rock have erupted and faded into hindsight embarrassment.

Pearl Jam still has a healthy pulse, and last week they released their best album in nearly a decade. Whereas their previous effort, 2002’s “Riot Act,” was conspicuous in its hushed passion and inordinate number of weak tracks, their self-titled release recaptures the hair-yanking ferocity of “Vitalogy.”

Plenty of songwriters fumble the intellect when delivering the rage. Vedder does not, and that understatement is evident on the first three tracks: “Life Wasted,” “World Wide Suicide,” and “Comatose.” (Notice the reoccurrence of the capital letter “W.” in those first two.)

Pearl Jam is not an exclusively political record, however. Like Radiohead, they typically create personalized music, but cannot cheerfully ignore the foreboding landscape wrought by corrupt bumpkins, religious extremism, and widespread apathy.

The album includes a few lovely ballads; the best is “Parachutes,” which gracefully and subtly ascends the organ-aided sentiment, “What a different had I not found this love with you.” Hey, if I’m corny for quoting that, consider me Captain Corny, jerks.

“Unemployable” is neither autobiographical nor political. The song showcases Vedder’s occasional gift of crafting a song from a short story writer’s approach. (Check out “Off He Goes” and “Sleight of Hand” from earlier albums.) “Gets up, lights a cigarette he’s grown to hate/ Thinking if he can’t sleep, how can he dream?” The tune is reminiscent of a Raymond Carver classic set to music.

The group’s musicianship is as solid as ever: riff-heavy yet democratic, impressive but never pompous. (Obligatory Phish jab.) Mike McCready and Stone Gossard are an extraordinary guitar duo, and if ex-Sound Garden drummer Matt Cameron ever sounded like the guy, he doesn’t anymore. And I don’t often compliment bass players, but Jeff Ament is also a damn-good musician.

While their previous album conveyed a band reeling backward, inundated by the world at large, self-titled snarls back with gritty resolve. The theme is best summarized by the repeating lyric: “Having tasted a life wasted, I am never going back again.”

Pearl Jam: Pearl Jam

May 5 2006

by Chris Brown, Daily Post


Pearl Jam
Pearl Jam (Sony/BMG)

WITH their eighth studio album release, Pearl Jam have now officially reached the point where I can chart a sizeable portion of my life to them.

Mercifully this will not mark the autumn years of myself or the band. Despite the years this sounds fresh, and aggressive.

They may hake emerged from grunge in the early 90s but the group have enough ideas and vibrance to keep this going through the 13 tracks. It is only a rock album, but it's a worthy one.

You know Pearl Jam is sincere

Gerry Krochak, Erin Harde and Chris Tessmer, The Leader-Post
Published: Saturday, May 13, 2006

PEARL JAM

Pearl Jam

Sony/BMG

HHH 1/2 (out of five)

Although generally an unconventional and unpredictable musical force, one may have expected an anti-war garage-rock record at this stage of Pearl Jam's game.

The last Seattle band standing from the grunge age unleashes a self-titled record of anger, frustration, sadness and disappointment. Using late-'60s protest songs and mid-'70s punk rock as obvious examples, war and economic unrest have traditionally led to . . . great music. But Pearl Jam is a record of questions and uncertainty.

Funk-laden grooves of "Army Reserve" as well as the melancholy sadness of "Parachutes," "Gone" and "Inside Job" make every bit as bold a statement as the furious bash and pop of "Life Wasted," first single "Worldwide Suicide" and "Comatose" do in the best three-song lead off you'll hear on any record this year.

You might not agree with everything you hear on Pearl Jam, but at least you know they mean it.

Gerry Krochak

By JASON SILVERSTEIN
NeXt Correspondent
5/10/2006

Click to view larger picture

In the early '90s, the music world was pretty much dominated by three bands, all from the Seattle grunge explosion: Nirvana, Soundgarden and Pearl Jam. Pearl Jam became an instant smash with its debut album "Ten," which since its 1991 release has sold 12 million copies. The group's success continued to rise with its follow-up albums: "Vs.," which set a record for first week sales, and "Vitalogy," which earned the group its only Grammy for the song "Spin the Black Circle."

But unlike their fellow grungers Nirvana and Soundgarden, who embraced their newfound fame, Pearl Jam loathed it. After "Ten," the band stopped making music videos, which today is like career suicide, and after "Vitalogy" they pretty much stopped all forms of self-promotion. They lost most of their casual fans, leaving only a smaller cult audience to continue to follow the band's career. Most old Pearl Jam fans probably don't even know of the existence of the last two albums. But with the band's new album, "Pearl Jam," the members seem to be back in the spotlight. Their new single, "Worldwide Suicide," is getting more airplay than any other Pearl Jam song ever has, they're reluctantly doing interviews again, and they're even considering (gasp) making a music video again. So is the album worth all the new hype?

The album starts very strongly with "Life Wasted," a fantastic rock song that will instantly bring comparisons to the band's older songs. But it doesn't let up after that. The next four songs, "Worldwide Suicide," "Comatose," "Severed Hand," and "Marker In the Sand," keep the rock going, each of them fast, energetic, and sure to become favorites at the band's infamous live shows. After all this non-stop rock, the album takes a quiet break, with "Parachutes," a moody acoustic song with astounding vocals that might be one of the happiest-sounding Pearl Jam songs ever, and "Unemployable," a catchy story-song telling the tale of a man recently laid off. These are followed by "Big Wave," the most surprising track on the entire album: Amidst all of the political crossfire and inspiration lyrics, it's surprising to see a song about surfing. The album then hits its climax with "Gone," a very emotional song that seems like it would work perfectly at the end of a movie.

The unfortunate part of the album, though, is the last third of it. After "Gone" comes "Wasted Reprise," a 50-second reprise of the chorus to "Life Wasted" set to organs. Some say this song is a creepy experiment, others call it filler. I'm somewhere in between. Then come the last three songs: "Army Reserve," "Come Back," and the closer "Inside Job." These songs aren't bad, but they're too long and eager to seem profound for their own good, and the album runs out of all the energy it built up previously.

So is this album worth all the new hype? Definitely. OK, it's not another "Vs.," but it's so close to it that you can't be disappointed. The band has proven that they can still keep their vibe going, which is especially demonstrated in the lyrics.

Most of the album's lyrics are either optimistic views of life or political rants against you-know-who. These are two topics that Pearl Jam has always focused on, and they execute them perfectly. This infinite inspiration, along with their extreme love for music (they might just be the only rock band on Earth that's telling the truth when they say they don't care about money), Pearl Jam has proven that they haven't lost their touch at all, and in true Pearl Jam style, they give you an optimistic view toward their future.


Jason Silverstein is a freshman at Williamsville North.

Pearl Jam comes back?
Tunes & Tix column by Tim Shellberg

BY TIM SHELLBERG
Times Correspondent

This story ran on nwitimes.com on Friday, May 12, 2006 12:39 AM CDT

Last week, Pearl Jam released their eighth album, self-titled. It's their first album since 2002's "Riot Act" and first album under the Clive Davis-founded J Records label. It is also being hailed as their best album since their early and mid-90s mega-selling and chart-topping days; it seems as if music scribes are shamelessly tripping over each other to have their hosannas prominently included in the next round of newspaper and radio ads. Music fans have also responded in kind; "World Wide Suicide," the album's first single, topped Billboard's modern rock singles chart and topped off at the number two slot in their mainstream rock singles chart.

Truth be told, they may be on to something. "Pearl Jam" is certainly their most inspired, focused and direct set in the last ten years. But just because the masses turned their collective head away from the band starting with 1996's diamond-in-the-rough "No Code" doesn't mean the band lost their vitality. Those ready to return to the Pearl Jam fold with their latest effort and current tour would do themselves a service in giving post-grunge efforts such as "Code," "Riot" and 2000's "Binaural" a few spins. The band may have been out of the mainstream glare, but there are certainly moments of grace to be found that equal, or even rival, those found on benchmarks such as 1991's "Ten" and 1993's "Vs." And considering the band toured extensively behind "Binaural" and "Riot," It's hard for them to come back if they never really went away.

Pearl Jam

"Pearl Jam"; J Records

Three-and-a-half stars (out of four)

A lot of bands put out self-titled albums early in their careers. Pearl Jam waited 15 years to do it. That might have been a clue, because on this disc the Seattle quintet sounds like a group just starting out, completely on fire and determined to rule the hard-rock pantheon. These guys haven't sounded this brilliantly inventive and aggressive in years.

The album rips into a five-song opening set that bounces off the walls with a frenzied array of surprising and amazing guitar riffs and solos (pay attention during the breathless third minute of "Severed Hand"). With a few exceptions, the delirious explosive pace doesn't relent. Singer Eddie Vedder's shredded but solid voice rages and yearns through territory that includes post-9/11 wars and worries, the economy and religious self-righteousness. Vedder's words are hard to follow sometimes, but there's no trouble getting his drift on a song like "World Wide Suicide" when he screams, "Medals on a wooden mantle, next to a handsome face that the president took for granted, writing checks that others pay."

It's not all political, but the band gets its digs in. And heavy topics work on a storytelling or introspective level. "Unemployable" is a Springsteen-esque tale of a working man's plight. "Army Reserve" tells of the worries of a family awaiting a soldier's return. "Life Wasted" and "Inside Job" are among a few calls for self-improvement. Of the slower songs, "Come Back" is magical with its soulful organ and guitars, and it could be sung over a country hymnal just as easily as over a near-empty bottle at closing time.

- Recommended if you like: Audioslave; Tool; classic guitar rock

-- Jeff Gifford, Reno Gazette-Journal

This is an interesting one. He says the album is great, then thrash it.

Pearl Jam
Pearl Jam (J)
By Sam Machkovech
Article Published May 10, 2006

Pearl Jam
Music Genre:
Rock & Pop

It's a shame that Pearl Jam is a great album. Not because there's anything wrong with Pearl Jam — whose waistlines increasingly edge upward on the quintet's thirtysomething bodies — putting together a pop-rock album with fire and vigor. The first three songs, particularly the radio-perfect "World Wide Suicide," showcase a screaming, off-the-walls Pearl Jam that sounds straight out of the mid-'90s and redeems the band's sliding relevance. Rather, it's a shame because an album that retreads the best moments on Vitalogy, No Code and Yield wins out mostly by comparison to the rest of the modern-rock landscape. If mainstream radio wasn't such a mess, certain facts — "Comatose" is a near-replica of "Spin the Black Circle," "Gone" is a watered-down version of "Given to Fly," the middle third of the album washes by with barely a memorable hook — would be enough to sink the ship. But Pearl Jam's status as grunge nobles affords them the right to ride the nostalgia train and keep old fans happy with the status quo. But, hey, it could be worse, as evidenced by Binaural; this time, at least Pearl Jam loaded the old rig with a shitload of coal.

You seem to have read a shit-load of reviews. Tell me...what's the general opinion?

New CD releases
Nigel Gould casts a critical eye over the new releases
12 May 2006

PEARL JAM Pearl Jam (sony/bmg)

But it has taken Pearl Jam a frankly unacceptable 14 years to make a record of the quality of their classic opus Ten.

While the wilderness period produced a handful of half-decent songs, mostly found on Vs, the follow-up to Ten which outsold Nevermind by their great rivals Nirvana, Seattle's grunge monsters have never managed to eclipse the class of 1992.

Ten was a phenomenon combining powerfully assured rock with sleek melodies and authoritative vocals. It was never going to be equalled never mind bettered.

But the new self-titled album comes pretty darn close.

Tunes like the cracking 100-mph Life Wasted, Comatose and World Wide Suicide are a pleasant return to the good old days, offering an intoxicating brew of uplifting intelligent rock and sweeping atmospherics.

Softer tracks such as Parachutes and the gorgeous Inside Job pay homage to the great Neil Young – and particularly the latest Prairie Wind stuff.

And you really can't ask for more than that!

Pearl Jam
Pearl Jam (J Records)
By Jonathan Zwickel
Article Published May 11, 2006

Behold, Pearl Jam! Mighty, embattled purveyors of enduring Major League Rock, quixotic political crusades, and crap album art. Released on the band's own imprint, Pearl Jam features cover art that's hellaciously ambiguous, poorly executed, and just plain dumb. So dumb, in fact, that the clip-art avocado adorning the package is kinda ingenious; so low-budgetly meaningless that it deflects attention from the imagery and onto the music itself. Or it puts off critics and renders the whole exercise irrelevant. Sort of what the band's continually dodgy public persona has done for the past 15 years.

Musically, though, the verdict is clear — Pearl Jam refuses to settle into self-congratulatory old age. Somehow, Pearl Jam sounds just as brazen, conflicted, and ready-to-be-clichéd classic rock as earlier work like Vitology. While Eddie Vedder dives further into introspection and alienation with his lyrics, the band's accompaniment percolates with some of its most vigorous, raw tunefulness in years. The minor-key dirges that weighted PJ's last few outings are here ("Army Reserve," "Marker in the Sand") and, unshackled by overbearing political themes, emerge as verified claims to importance. The punk-powered rave-ups are here ("Life Wasted," "World Wide Suicide") and, given Vedder's grizzled optimism, come off as life-damaged rallying cries to the rock 'n' roll faithful. And the downtempo, melodic numbers are here too ("Parachutes," "Gone"), yearning and truthful, balanced by Vedder's still-too-earnest-for-spite vocals and songwriting contributed by every member of the band. In fact, Pearl Jam is as much a group effort as Ten was back in 1991. Whether that will gain the band new fans (or whether there are any new fans to gain, period) doesn't matter. To those who still care about rock, it will certainly win the band greater respect.

Thanks for the reviews again. On the whole i believe they have been well written and a good summation of the album. Once again they are very positive, will it result in sustained good sales? only time will tell.

I have read 80 - 90 reviews and about 50% have been of the "we didn't think they had it in 'em" variety. 25% very good to good. 15% mixed bag and 10% negative. There are still a couple of important ones to come. I expect Spin's review to be an A- or B+. I think Mojo already gave it a glowing review, but I can't seem to find it anywhere. Of the negative ones, the only one to put any weight in is the Associated Press.

Honestly, I don't think you could have asked for better reviews. PJ will never be a critic's darling, because they are not breaking any new ground. In general, they play straight-forward "classic" rock.

If I had to say, I would agree with Metacritic. The album has been received very well, but falls just short of Universal Acclaim.

HOLY FUCKING SHIT, are there always this many reviews for an album. I think we will be at 100 by the end of the weekend.

May 11th, 2006
Pearl Jam - (J Records/Sony BMG)

Pearl Jam
Dave Jaffer



Fifteen years after Ten, the living legends have still got it. For proof, look no further than the first single, World Wide Suicide, which is both a scathing rebuke of Bush's war machine and a pointed, pounding, powerful rock song on which Vedder's voice dominates like it was still 1993. This is a back-to-basics album, with edgy, visceral rockers (Life Wasted, Big Wave) and heart-wrenching melancholy (Gone, Come Back) balanced throughout, yielding an irresistible combination. Left wing, critical and angry all at once, this is Pearl Jam's best disc in 10 years, and a tour de force in its own right.

That's right, even The Mormons like the new CD. I love the Mormons, well, at least my wife - she is one. And yes, she is my only wife.

From the BYU student newspaper:

Review: Grunge rockers return with strongest set in years
By Ben Carter - 10 May 2006



Just in case anyone wasn't sure about Pearl Jam's politics after they played Bob Dylan's "Masters of War" on Letterman the night before the 2004 election and headlined the Vote For Change Tour, the band is back with a 13-track eponymous attack on the Iraq war.

The attack, while prominent, is really only a small part of the overall statement the band makes with the album, which was released May 2 on J Records.

The lead single, "World Wide Suicide" empathizes with families of fallen soldiers while blaming "the president [for] writing checks that others pay." "Marker in the Sand" laments that "you got both sides claiming killing in God's name," and a military wife obsesses about the possibility of losing her husband in "Army Reserve."

While these are some of the most partisan songs Pearl Jam has ever written, they are the only ones on the new album that even mention the war. The rest of the album is primarily characterized by the introspective, hopeful feeling Pearl Jam fans have come to expect.

Throughout the album, the band sounds re-energized after surviving some of the hardest times of their career. The trampling deaths of nine fans during the band's set at the Roskilde Festival in Denmark and lead singer Eddie Vedder's divorce have cast a shadow on the band's mood for the last couple albums.

The first five songs on "Pearl Jam" are fast-paced and hard-rocking, without becoming too dark. Boom Casper's organ is used considerably more sparingly than it was on 2002's "Riot Act," but when it can be heard it has greater emotional. The album closes with McCready's empowering lyrics about overcoming addiction: "How I choose to feel/ Is how I am/ I will not lose my faith/ It's an inside job today."

These lyrics and those of "Life Wasted" and "Gone" deal with the theme of leaving past mistakes behind and moving forward with hope and determination. This is a theme Pearl Jam hasn't dealt with this powerfully since 1996's "Present Tense."

The love song "Parachutes" and the somewhat silly punk ode to surfing, "Big Wave," round out the album with a more playful mood.

Overall, this is the strongest, most energetic and focused effort Pearl Jam has made since "Yield" in 1998. Whether you agree with the politics or not, rock fans will appreciate the crunching guitars and powerful but sensitive vocals "Pearl Jam" has to offer.

Highlights: "Marker in the Sand," "Gone," "Army Reserve," "Come Back," "Inside Job"

Low Points: "Comatose," "Severed Hand"

Pearl Jam

PEARL JAM

While it's true, of course, that you can't tell a book (or a CD) by its cover, it's also true that you can sometimes glean a little something from them -- so bear with us on this for a sec.

The cover of Pearl Jam's ninth studio CD is a gorgeous blue that contrasts sharply with the rich earth tones of a perfectly sliced avocado; it's a striking image that sighs peace. Inside the cover, however, that's the last thing you'd think of. The band's portraits are mangled, bloodied and ghoulish, a gruesome if artfully designed horrorshow.

Beauty juxtaposed with the grotesque is hardly a novel aesthetic, but the sharpness of the contrast does indeed carry into the work and persona of the band: Pearl Jam's music has long been, and remains, that of the fi st-pumping, arena-rock fan boy, a triumph of monster rhythm, keel-haul drumming and a veritable fi restorm of guitars -- rock and roll with a vengeance, as dependable now as it was in 1991 when Even Flow blew our ears back the fi rst time.

Lyrically, however, Pearl Jam are a band apart. Its songs are about desolation, despair and a desperately morbid fascination with the way the world is supposed to work but usually doesn't. Pearl Jam songs are a grim cavalcade of wrongheadedness, wrapped around a plea and a hope to make it all right.

And this time around, American-global politics have moved front and center in the band's concerns. The single World Wide Suicide is a fi ery anti-war rant, trained on Bush's Iraq. Marker in the Sand rails against jihad, while Unemployable and Army Reserve take a hard look at how things are going back home. The album is more torn-from- today's headlines than Pearl Jam has ever been, and seeing the band rocking out in protest, rather than directionless angst, is bracing - - and what, fi nally, pulls together the group's often disparate grim and glorious halves better than might have been expected.

As always, the raspy voice and work-booted sensibility of Eddie Vedder leads the charge, though this is defi nitely a group effort. Guitarists Stone Gossard and Mike McCready, bassist Jeff Ament and drummer Matt Cameron know how to swing for the cheap seats right alongside him, and have rarely played better. Could it have been 15 years already? The 1990s never seemed so close, and so far away.

Grade: B+

Finally a bad review, it was like 20 stellar reviews in a row.

Last of grungsters

Album: Pearl Jam Artist: Pearl Jam Label: J Records Rating: **1/2 (out of *****) Standout tracks: Come Back, World Wide Suicide, Unemployable

There is one good reason why every great rock band should disband after only three or four albums. British proto-punk band Wire called it a day after their third album 154 in 1979, alternative rockers Soundgarden bid farewell after Down On the Upside in 1997, and rock trailblazer Velvet Underground quit after the 1969's Loaded.

One good thing that comes from quitting early is that those great bands can bow out gracefully before they descend into wasted parody.

Seattlelite grungsters Pearl Jam, however, defy that iron law. And as a consequence, the band will likely soon follow the footsteps of the Rolling Stones, which will only produce a decent release after God knows when.

After their last great album Vitalogy in 1994, Pearl Jam was capable only of making passable records, as if they'd merely fulfilled their contractual obligation to Epic records.

Now, free from Epic's shackle -- ironically signed to J Records, a subsidiary of BMG, the other half of Sony BMG -- and already way past their prime, Pearl Jam releases an eponymous release that is far from being their late-career triumph.

And we are once again forced to witness the shameful fall of a band that was once so good.

Pearl Jam has the most disjointed music the band has ever crafted. Twin guitarists Mike McReady and Stone Gossard churn out some of the most overwrought riffs culled from their own back catalog and sound so dated. Matt Cameron's usual out-drumming stutters in the face of the duo's sonic assault.

As for Eddie Vedder's howling and groaning, they merely channel fatigue rather than angst. And after years of baring his tortured soul, successfully predicting the Columbine massacre and attacking Dubya, Vedder practically has nothing more to say.

Even after repeated spins, this record fails to sink in.

-- JP/M. Taufiqurrahman

Pearl Jam: Pearl Jam

14.05.06
By Scott Kara

Herald rating: * * * (out of four)

There's no doubt Pearl Jam write great songs - they have ever since their debut Ten, when songs such as Even Flow and Jeremy whipped the world's mosh pits into a rolling frenzy back in 1991.

Apart from a few lumbering and odd albums, they remain one of modern music's most consistent bands.

On this self-titled release the riotous riffs are back right from the opening track, Life Wasted. The music cracks along; at times it's fiery (the snappy riffing and piercing harmonics of Severed Head), at times sneering (first single, World Wide Suicide).

But while much has been said about a revitalised Pearl Jam, it's the quiet moments that build into something that are the most enjoyable, such as the lovely and long last track, Inside Job, the smouldering Gone, and the lilting heart-squeezer Parachutes.

On Parachutes Vedder sings without that trademark warble, which makes you aware of what a stunning voice he has. Yes, he has one of the most distinctive voices in music, but after years of warbling himself hoarse he sounds worn out on some of the up-beat tunes .

This album is for the fans, and most of them will declare it one of the band's best. But it's nothing that special - just more good, solid Pearl Jam.

Label: Sony/BMG