Pearl Jam [Digipak] - Pearl Jam (CD 2006)

Note: I waited 3.5 years for this thing. You bet your a*s it's a long review!

It's hard to believe that it's been over eight years since Pearl Jam released Yield, considered by many of their most loyal fans to be their best record. Since then, the band has been battered: lead singer Eddie Vedder divorced his longtime partner, guitarist Mike McCready battled with the bottle, the entire band watched in horror as nine fans were crushed to death at the Roskilde Festival, and the band took some heavy heat for the song Bushleaguer and how they decided to perform said song live (with Eddie in a Bush mask that he would place on the mic stand and sing to). They took even more heat for being on the Vote for Change tour in 2004. They finished their record deal with Epic and questions swirled around who would get the next Pearl Jam album.

All of this added up to their last two albums being their darkest, both in tone and in lyrical content. The group sounded worn out, tired, and most of all, defeated. While their live shows retained the power so necessary to their music, the band's studio output was hazy at best. The band at times sounded bored, and who wouldn't be bored playing songs like Sleight of Hand, Nothing as it Seems, Thumbing My Way and All or None? The rockers were, for the most part, overly generic for the band, and b-sides that should've been A-sides were buried until the release of Lost Dogs at the end of 2003.

Most importantly though, the specter of hope, inspiration and triumph always raised by the band's music and lyrics had been replaced with a dark pessimism that was disconcerting to listen to. Lines such as "she will rise above!" and "f*ckers, he still stands" had been replaced with "I smile but who am I kidding" and "it's a hopeless situation."

But things are looking up. Vedder had a baby girl with his girlfriend in 2004, and McCready has kicked the bottle. The pall of Roskilde will always follow the band on stage, but it seems they've put it behind them in terms of their writing. And I can safely say that the band's eighth record, self titled and due May 2nd on J Records, is their best work by a mile since Yield.

The band's re-found energy is evident on the first five tracks, with layered guitars jumping out at the listener. And the lyrics? A gigantic improvement. Hope abounds and Eddie sounds passionate throughout. Life Wasted begins with slashing guitar chords and driving drums, and so begins the overall theme of the album: staring adversity in the face and triumphing over it. Vedder sings the lines making up the title of this review and follows them up with a laugh, as if he himself has just come out of the darkness. It's an appropriate statement for a band who cloaked their music in dreariness for way too long.

First single Worldwide Suicide hits next, and not surprisingly, the song is a political shot at the war in Iraq. I wasn't big on this song at first, but it has slowly grown on me. I wish the skeleton of it didn't sound like a Strokes song, but to hear Eddie this passionate again makes it worthwhile. The swirling guitar that comes in on the bridge is irresistible, and this is Vedder's most lucid song since Insignificance, another anti-war number. He doesn't name Bush, but it's clear who he's talking about when he sings "medals on a wooden mantle, next to a handsome face, that the president took for granted, writing checks that others pay."

Comatose will immediately harken fans back to Spin the Black Circle, and the song has undergone a bit of a lyrical makeover since it's live debut a little over a year ago (when it was known as Crapshoot). It's hard to gauge a meaning in the lyrics, but it is very possible that they are pointing at the acceptance (or lack thereof) of gay marriage ("high above I'll break the law, it's illegal to be in love, leave the hatred on the cross"). I'm sure others will bring up the point that Ed sounds like his vocal chords are shredded, but for me, that rawness is something the band has been missing big time and to see it come back is absolutely nothing short of awesome. My only complaint is that McCready's blistering solo is way too short.

Life Wasted's quick start was a good way to start the album, but Severed Hand's extended intro would have been a terrific way to start it as well. This song is a bit more midtempo but it works really well. The hook as the band heads into the line "I've no fear but for falling down" is the strongest they've come up with since Given to Fly's big waves. Meanwhile, to watch Ed get into the head of a young soldier as he heads out into war while contrasting that with the messed up mind of a older veteran is nothing short of amazing.

Continuing the war theme is Marker in the Sand, which much like Severed Hand, benefits from a terrific hook on the chorus. The song is anti-war, but instead of attacking Bush or our government, it's actually attacking religion's complicity in creating war, and has pretty much nothing to do with the United States' current conflict, but instead, conflict in general ("now you got both sides claiming killing in god's name, but god is nowhere to be found conveniently"). The guitars throughout the first half of this record are all terrific, and while outside of the solos, they aren't doing anything special, the songs benefit from an overall "keep it simple, stupid" mentality.

After the energy of the first five tracks, the beginning of Parachutes comes as a bit of a surprise. One of the only slower songs on the record, it's a real shock to the system. It has a plodding but affecting pace to it and the lyrics are really, well, pretty, for lack of a better term. It's pace may turn people off, and it's obviously very much Beatles inspired, but it stands strong on its own.

"Falling" is an important thematic thread for this record, especially over the first half. When you consider the idea is presented in one form or another on Comatose, Severed Hand, Marker in the Sand, and Parachutes, it is especially obvious. Falling can be interpreted as weakness or failure, and the album is most certainly mainly about learning how to overcome this.

Unemployable, the "b-side" to the I-Tunes release of Worldwide Suicide, is as much Bruce Springsteen inspired as Parachutes is Beatles inspired. On first look, this song may look like a downer, but I think it actually has strength not only in it's sound, but in the lyrics as well. "Well his wife and kids asleep but he's still awake, and his brains weighs the curse of thirty bills unpaid." Ultimately the question of "how will he ever dream again?" is left up to the listener, but I certainly can derive more hope from this song than I could on just about any song on the previous two records.

Just as the band wrote an ode to vinyl, they've now written an ode to surfing. Big Wave is this album's throwaway "rocker." It's not a bad song but given what it's been put on here with, it's hard to not call it filler. I suppose it's worth a listen just to hear McCready shred some more.

Gone, the only other song debuted live last year, has been transformed into a full band hymn of sorts. It's reminiscent of Given to Fly in the way it builds and crests, but it doesn't quite reach the heights of Given to Fly. Similarly, the idea of driving to escape has been travelled by this band before (most notably on Rearviewmirror), and ultimately, this song is destined to be called the red headed step child of GTF and RVM. It's a shame, because it's a solid song and continues the band's habit of creating some really inspiring choruses on this record.

Wasted Reprise is just what it sounds like: a small reprise of Life Wasted with nothing more than Ed's vocals and some nice b3 playing from Boom. It works well as a kind of intro to Army Reserve, which is, you guessed it, another anti-war song. I think where the band has improved on this record with their anti-war rhetoric is that they've managed to tell stories and put faces to the songs, rather than creating overblown (though effective) imagery (Insignificance) or 3rd grade schoolyard insults (Bushleaguer). Perhaps even more impressive is that Eddie wrote it with death row inmate Damien Echols (part of the West Memphis Three, info at wm3.org). This song would not be out of place on Vs., with Eddie singing his heart out on lines like "looks like lighning in my child's eye."

We then hit the album's highest point on Come Back. The song has a 50s ballad vibe to it (and no, it doesn't sound like Last Kiss), sounding very much like an Elvis track, and I love the way Eddie croons this song. THIS is the Pearl Jam I remember and love. I honestly thought this band had lost the ability to make me feel as emotional about new material the way their old material did but the last two minutes of this song is possibly the best thing this band has done, EVER. The emotional heights this song reaches is awe-inspiring. The fact that it's playful (towards the end) and soulful and bluesy and simple and yet so powerful are just some of the reasons I love this song. Then there's the lyrics, which could be interpreted any one of a million ways, all of which revealing a poignant song.

After the emotional buildup of Come Back, it's clear that that song should've closed out the album. Instead, Inside Job closes things out. A strong, slow builder of a song, the song appears to tackle Mike's battle with alcohol. I'm actually pleasantly surprised by Mike's lyrics (his first to appear on a PJ record) and the emotions he's able to convey. Personally, for me, it almost takes too long to build and I wouldn't be surprised to see many people lose patience with it before it really gets going. Once it does get going it is terrific stuff, treading the same inspirational territory in tone that much of the rest of the album does.

I remember hearing Worldwide Suicide for the first time 2 months ago and thinking "eh, it's ok I guess." I had honestly almost given up the hope of ever seeing this band create another album that would tug at my soul while making me feel the way their live performances did. The last two albums satisfied me early but they didn't have any lasting impact.

There have been long waits for albums where I've said "they made me wait this long for THIS??!!" But this album is just the opposite: it is, in essence, everything that made me fall in love with Pearl Jam in the first place. It is almost perfect. It is the very definition of what a self-titled album should be: a definitive statement of who that band is at that point in time.

4.5 stars (minor tracklisting issues), rounded UP.