Review: Pearl Jam come roaring back with superb new album

Trust Pearl Jam to still surprise us in 2020. Seattle rock gods have made an album we didn’t kw we needed.

“Gigaton” is a fascinating and ambitious 12-track collection with a cleaner, crisper sound that is studded with interesting textures, topped by Eddie Vedder’s still-indignant voice.

Many songs switch gears and morph into something else before y’re done, as if group was restless to try something else. Bandmates have also switched instruments on this, ir 11th studio album and ir first in seven years.

“Gigaton” marks band’s first co-production with Josh Evans, who previously worked with Soundgarden and Chris Cornell. He’s helped pull out more experimentation, certainly from messy last studio offering, “Lightning Bolt.”

first single, “Dance of Clairvoyants,” is one of most exciting Pearl Jam songs in decades, with guitarist Stone Gossard playing chunky bass lines, bassist Jeff Ament offering splintering, chopping guitar riffs and Vedder’s voice at its most mercurial, bursting out of song’s outline.

“Alright” is a nifty, y, Peter Gabriel-ish tune and “Comes n Goes” is an acoustic ballad for a lost friend. Gossard sings lead on terrifically unsettling lullaby “Buckle Up” and drummer Matt Cameron shines on excellent “Take Long Way,” attacking his kit like a thrash act.

Environmental fears are a frequent motif, with Vedder often singing about oceans rising and an uneasy Earth. “You can’t hide lies/In rings of a tree,” he sings on “Alright.” album’s cover captures a rwegian ice cap gushing and title “Gigaton” is often used to measure human carbon dioxide emissions.

band’s distaste for current politics is also easily apparent: Vedder sings in one song that “government thrives on discontent” and on “Never Destination” he mentions “collusion hiding in plain sight.”

Donald Trump is directly mentioned once, in “Quick Escape,” a rocking ditty about looking for a place, anyplace — Morocco, Zanzibar, Mars even — that president hasn’t destroyed yet. He later calls sitting president an on ar track.

But despite gloom, re’s great hope on “Gigaton,” too, with Vedder cheerleading resistance. “Swim sideways from this undertow and do t be deterred,” he counsels on “Seven O’Clock” and adds, “This is time for depression.” And on straightforward rocker “Superblood Wolfmoon,” he says: “Don’t allow for hopelessness/Focus on your focusness/I’ve been hoping that our hope dies last.”

album ends with mournful “River Cross,” with side that is right in a chokehold and outnumbered. Yet y will win: “Share light/Won’t hold us down,” Vedder sings, virtually sobbing, like a prayer. As for us, we can thank God y’re back.

Im credit: AP