No Code - Pearl Jam (CD 1996)

Stairway2Drew
For me, to review No Code - or, for that matter, any other Pearl Jam album - is to fret about not doing justice to it
But as a collection of songs No Code is as near-faultless an album as Pearl Jam have ever produced
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Andym173
The tunes and rhythm of some of the songs drew me in from the very start, and the ones that I didn t get right away I soon got to know by listening around the ones that I did pick up.
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MattA75
It's quite obvious he's looking for his place in the world, rather than tackling social issues or political ones
Either way, sit down, grab a warm cup of tea, and just listen to this CD. Methinks you haven't actually listened to it if you knock it.
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Writing about PJ on this website has become something of a team effort. None of us can really say all that there is to say about albums this damn good, and as a result we spend long periods of time quoting each other. Nothing wrong with that. Sometimes we all require a nice pat on the back.

Back to the point. Matt, it goes without saying, has got it completely right. PJ usually spend most of their time taking on social mores or political injustices testament to this is their recent embarkation on the tour against Dubya under a banner provided by Bruce Springsteen. But if the boys have released an introspective album in their long and star-studded careers, then this is it.

Just look at the design. The album cover sports a plethora of tiny photographic details, Polaroids the vast majority of which were snapped by the band themselves. The lyrics have also been intriguingly printed on the back of a series of imitation Polaroids. This really is an album about perception, about engaging with the surrounding world, but from the inside out.

Sometimes is ample proof of this, an open letter to God, of all people.

Seek my part Devote myself My small self

For the first time in, well ever, Vedder sounds almost apologetic, struggling through a slightly strained analogy of God as painter, as if the words to really express what he means completely elude his grasp. In fact, for the first time he seems almost at a loss for words, eschewing the usual PJ eloquence in favour of a series of words as patchwork and incomplete a description as the Polaroid images providing a visual register for the world. And then, in a burst of absolute frustration, Hail, Hail shatters forth, hardly even allowing Sometimes to fade out.

Now to say Hail, Hail might well be PJ s best rocker is to do it a great disservice, because this song does a lot more than just rawk like hell.

I sometimes realise I could only be as good as you ll let me

Is this a postscript for Sometimes? When Vedder yells that he hails the lucky ones, I refer to those in love, is he referring to those who are able to love, believe and have faith in God? Is this album so far a crisis of faith? Surely Vedder wouldn t be so terribly perverse as to couple a crisis of faith with the words Hail, Hail, more famously uttered in connection with a certain totalitarian state-of-mind?

The album is off to a genuinely stellar start, and after the harsh lambasting of Hail, Hail we enter the far more conciliatory Who you are, probably the main thing on the album to have sparked the Eastern music comparisons that No Code is often burdened with. In a sense, such philosophical invocations and meandering musical tangents serve to highlight the album as more spiritual than outright religious. Without really getting into much depth, Who you are seems to focus the album s emotional thread towards being a search for the self and for honesty, having in a few harsh words and chords thrown the frame of reference of Christianity out of the window (so to speak).

In my tree keeps the softer edge of the album rolling forwards, and is another wonderful track. It insinuates itself as a slightly irrationally possessive song, almost primitive in the connotations of my tree, the need to have a corner of one s own, an instinctual response. Smile follows up, and while it doesn t clarify where the album is going, it does make for a tremendously effective piece of ear-candy. Well, it obviously owes much to Neil Young (who PJ had by now recorded with on Mirrorball), and it certainly feels like a bit of a tribute to Neil and Crazy Horse. It s one of my favourite songs on the album, along with Hail, Hail, it simply carries so much weight and melodic satisfaction as to be impossible to dislike.

Off he goes is a much more pensive song, subtle in contrast to the angular dynamics of Smile. It still feels a little Young-esque, but this time the gentle acoustic driven music of say Harvest. It seems to be about a Christ-figure, although this sort of my friend story only feels like a thinly-veiled autobiographical reflection. In essence, it s a song about a troubled mind in constant search of some sort of peace and truth

It s like his thoughts are too big for his size

It s a song about dealing with life, about being dragged down, about the ceremonial martyrdom of celebrity (doesn t look the same up on the rack), and about surviving

Nothing s changed but the surrounding bullsh!t that has grown

A song about being honest to oneself, about not allowing anyone to change the motivations for which actions are performed and art is created. A song about a modern day crusader, if ever I heard one. And of course, it s blissfully performed.

Just like Sometimes, and just like life in general, peace and tranquillity has a nasty tendency of being blown up in our faces, so the savage thrash of Habit feels like one of those typical moments in which our expectations never elevate above the worst. It s not their best rocker, but after Off he goes it really takes on a resounding power that gets the album pummelling forth again. In fact, if Off he goes reflects the Christ figure of honesty to oneself, Habit very much incarnates the anti-Christ

Taking off for what s an obvious fall
Just to see what all the fuss is about
It s not your way Not your way It s not your way

This time it s about sinking into the habit of the easiest solution, about going with flow of accepted norm. About being dishonest. Red mosquito seems to be a continuation of the same story

I was bitten, must have been the devil
He was just paying me a little visit
Letting me know he s a waiting

Vedder sees it happen to a couple of his friends, and yet he is aware of the temptation. Whether he survives it is another matter

If I had known then what I know now

It s another Young-esque grungy rocker, and it sounds simply fabulous. It may seem obvious, but it bears repeating, PJ sound glorious on this album.

Although Lukin may be the exception that proves the rule. There s nothing wrong with this punky ode to Mudhoney s bassist, Matt Lukin, but its punchy brevity and screamy vocals make it seem little more than an interlude.

The album gets back on track with the hauntingly magnificent Present tense. It wears its heart on its sleeve, it s a song about breaking with the mistakes of the past, of carrying on with life, with the present

You can come to terms and realise you re the only one who cannot forgive yourself
It makes much more sense to live in the present tense

Not that it s easy, mind you

Seems that needlessly it s getting harder
To find an approach and a way to live

It s an extraordinary song, from the impassioned gentles verses, the guitar washes of the chorus and then the bristling build-up and screeching instrumental climax.

Mankind sees Stone Gossard getting a rare airing at the head of the band, to the point of singing lead vocals. It actually might well be my least favourite track on the album, and this is no slight to Stone. It simply retreads similar lyrical ground and doesn t rock nearly as hard as Hail, Hail.

It s all just inadvertent simulation a pattern in all mankind
What s got the whole world fakin it?

I m open is another in a line of PJ oddities, a simple guitar melody underpinning a mostly spoken-word vocal delivery. Again, it s a song about reality and truth, about being open enough to re-evaluate one s position in the world and more to the point, being able to continuously do so in order to avoid standing still

After spending half his life searching he still felt as blank as the ceiling at which he stared

When he was six he believed that the moon overhead followed him. By nine he had deciphered the illusion, trading magic for fact. No tradebacks. So this is what it s like to be an adult. If only he knew now what he knew then.

It s as if over years of struggling to find truth in the world, Vedder and Gossard and the rest are suddenly caught testing themselves, to see if the truth they seek is consistent with their own attitudes. The only way to be honest about the outside is to be honest about the inside, the entire purpose of the album. An album that rails heatedly against the gregarious imitative nature of mankind, quite prone to all lifting their hands in perfect synchronised unison and proclaiming Hail, Hail to the nearest convincing despot. But that very human nature is so inlaid in mankind, so instinctual as to be indivisible from the better-selves that Vedder searches for in himself and encourages others to do as well. No wonder he s having a crisis of belief. With contradictions like that undermining humanity, what future do we have?

With all these thoughts buzzing around, Vedder opts for an optimistic, if slightly escapist, conclusion to the album; Around the bend. Its lullaby feel and well-wishing lyrical twist is infinitely peaceful, although its presence on such a troubled and restless album feels a little odd. On the other hand, it s a powerfully life-affirming statement of undiluted love, the love we are all capable of.

No Code isn t a revolutionary album in the vein of other PJ works. But it is a necessary step towards taking the moral high-ground over the Dubya s of this world. Vedder s conscience is at peace. Can you say the same?