New Pearl Jam album
Holy [something]. Or whatever the secular equivalent of holy is. Majestic [something].
It’s not their Led Zeppelin IV — not an album for which each song could, individually, be coupled with fifty minutes of filler and still be historic — but it is amazing. Yes, I’m saying this as a rabid PJ fan, but you might want to take my word this time anyway.
The single, World Wide Suicide, the mind-blowing Marker in the Sand, and Gone could each carry an album. Severed Hand could carry a boxed set. World Wide Suicide, Gone, and Severed Hand could top modern rock charts, and Marker in the Sand could top album rock charts. Come Back may even be sadder than Thumbing My Way from Riot Act. I was sobbing, and had to go wake up my wife, and it’s going to be a long time before I can listen to it without crying. Big Wave is a wonderful, passionate Darwinian surfing song.
Unemployable and Army Reserve are both striking character portraits. One wonders if Life Wasted is written to the same person as their previous works Save You and All Those Yesterdays, or if Ed has more than his fair share of self-destructive friends (either way, he, she, or they have my best wishes.) Inside Job is a masterful, sprawling close to the album, and the band are unfathomably gracious, emotionally, not to make us end on Gone or Come Back, which they easily could have done.
The number of stylistic touches in Ed’s voice on the album, the range of musical influences inspiring the songs, the tightly woven unity of the different composers’ works — man, I’m rambling. I cannot honestly say, “Even if you’ve never liked a Pearl Jam album, check this out.” But I can certainly say, “If you’ve ever liked a Pearl Jam album, get it as soon as possible.”
And, as always, try to listen on good studio monitor headphones the first time.
If I don’t lose control
Explore and not explode
A preternatural other plane
With the power to maintain
Like a tear in all we know
Once dissolved, we are free to grow
“What is human, what is more?”
I’ll answer this when I get home.
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May 1st, 2006 at 4:49 am
Umm, yeah. Marker in the Sand is one of my favorite songs of all time. I think you could add that to the ‘could carry a boxed set’ list. And you didn’t even mention the driving Comatose which is the song I’m most excited to hear in concert. That’s going to, as the kids might say, rock da house. And the Beatles-esque Parachutes, which is one of the more charming songs I’ve ever heard PJ release; a nice place to take a preparatory breath for the onslaught that’s about to come.
And I completely agree with you that they were very nice not to end on Come Back; they did that with Riot Act as well, when if they had ended with Arc, or had ended with All or None without putting Arc immediately preceding, I pretty much wouldn’t be able to listen to that album. This new album may very well turn out to be my favorite PJ album of all time.
May 1st, 2006 at 11:48 pm
You are right about moving Marker in the Sand to the boxed set list. I’ve listened to it 9 - 10 times so far, and it hasn’t yet stopped getting better, and for now, at least, it’s displacing Love Boat Captain and Immortality from the top of my Pearl Jam faves list.
Comatose still hasn’t really grown on me yet. We can apply the Grateful Dead Principle (”The worst Dead concert is better than the best day at work”) here, easily — no complaints — but for me, it doesn’t hold up to the rest of the album. Neither does Life Wasted, for me. But that was part of what I was hoping for in posting this list, since music moves people so differently. After writing my review, I went to Amazon’s site, and their reviewer pretty much praised every song I had ignored and ignored every song I had praised.
Parachutes: thinking about it as a staging, breather piece is a good metaphor.
A little more on Gone: Ed was talking about MFC one time, and he talked about it being a song that he’s written lots of times before, about getting in a car and getting out of a bad situation. rearviewmirror is of course another. I don’t know if the others are public tracks. But I think Gone, from the new album, does it better than any of its predecessors, and it’s probably my third favorite on the album. What did you think of it?
I cried again listening to Come Back. I’m a little wimpy baby, I know, but it is heart-wrenching.
This is going to be a great week. Tool, Dream Theater, and Queensrÿche all have albums that I’ve just learned about, and I’ve ordered all from Amazon (they shipped today.) A lot of complex music to digest. Fortunately, I have my good headphones.
As I said, good week.
May 7th, 2006 at 2:39 pm
Gone is actually my least favorite track on the album (let us go ahead and remind ourselves of the Grateful Dead Principle). When I watched Eddie play it solo on the AOL sessions, I enjoyed it more… but I’m not digging on it as much as the rest of the stuff. Part of that is probably that I feel like I’ve heard this song before, but another part is, um, I don’t really like RVM or MFC much either. So… guess I just don’t dig on driving songs. That is to say, songs about driving, not songs with a beat. I like songs with beats. I don’t so much like beets though.
Marker in the Sand is ridiculous. Damn damn damn.
May 13th, 2006 at 7:19 pm
Another of the driving songs would be the untitled track they frequently play as a lead-in to MFC but which seems to be its own song, and which I’m sure Ed wrote:
Got a car, got some gas,
Let’s get out of here, get out of here fast,
Oh everyone’s confused, so I stay in my room,
If I go I don’t want to go alone
I hope you get this message, or you’re not home
I could be there in ten mintues or so,
Oh I got my things, we’ll make it up as we go along,
With you I could never be alone,
Never be alone
May 2nd, 2007 at 6:24 pm
Well, I know I’m a little late for this particular entry, I guess, but I still want to put in my two cents.. if you don’t mind.
As any loyal Pearl Jam fan, I was excited about this album before they even recorded it. And when they finally released it, I was more than pleased with the outcome. Personally, my favorite song happens to be “Come Back.” And as selfish and childish as this may sound, it has been MY song from the beginning, it made me cry every single time I listened to it, even months after it came out, and it still makes me cry every once in a while (probably depending on my mood).. however, EVERY song is amazing in its own way.
Can you believe it’s been a year since it was released?
May 2nd, 2007 at 8:31 pm
Wow, yeah, a year.
Thanks, Karina!
May 3rd, 2007 at 11:26 am
pearl jam’s worst record to date is their self-titled. i don’t understand why it was released and no one can know the disappointment i felt upon my purchasing it. reviewing every pearl jam CD i own (which totals 17, a few live sets and all studio albums), i realized that their peak was long ago and that they will possibly never regain the ability to release another Vitalogy or Yield. people, these albums are worth something. their self-titled release is worthless. every bit of it has been done before.