Article - Courier Mail(Brisbane) - Very Positive Review
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Pearl Jam's ninth surprises
Noel Mengel
24 September 2009
The Courier-Mail
1 - First with the news
55
ROCK
Pearl Jam
Backspacer
(Universal) ****
``WHEN something's dark let me shed a little light on it,'' Eddie Vedder sings on The Fixer, one of several short, sharp, punchy pop-rock numbers on the band's ninth album. And further: ``When something's gone I wanna fight to get it back again.''
He's not joking. Bands are not in the habit of making their best records 18 years into their career, but a case can certainly be put for the Backspacer being as good as any album Pearl Jam has ever released.
It's an album that might surprise some of their devoted fans but also one that people who don't care much for Pearl Jam, or haven't for a long time, will enjoy too. Backspacer overcomes any tendencies to earnestness, and the exuberance in the music makes this album feel like a celebration.
It's almost as if Vedder has let the inner I See Red fan in him -- and he is a Split Enz fan -- rise to the surface and everyone else has caught the bug. Some Pearl Jam albums feel overworked. This is lean, filler-free.
The reunion with producer Brendan O'Brien for the first time since 1998's Yield may have something to do with it.
But the songs are there this time, there was no mucking around in the studio trying to write them, and sessions for most of the songs were wrapped up in two weeks.
The opening quartet of tunes are rockers, all perfect for the live stage. Gonna See My Friend and Got Some are tough, punky, in a New York-CBGBs kind of way. And The Fixer is such a feelgood blast that it might even get them some radio airplay. That gives way to Just Breathe, a gentle, fingerpicked acoustic guitar song, a love song no less, complete with string arrangement. That completes side one, as doubtless Pearl Jam imagined the album in its vinyl format when they sequenced the tracks.
Side two broadens the sound from the more direct assault of those opening songs.
Amongst The Waves and Unthought Known are big, Who-like anthems -- Quadrophenia era -- with some razor-sharp lead guitar lines and pounding drums.
Vedder's lyrics are looking in, there's a personal rawness to them that keeps the album on a human scale. Clearly, he's experiencing what everyone does in maturity, the feeling that time is not just passing but accelerating.
``Yesterdays, how quick they change, all lost and gone now,'' he sings on Speed of Sound, another powerful anthem in this album's second half.
Again, there is an acoustic track with strings to close ``side two''. The End might borrow a Beatles title but it's more like their Eleanor Rigby, written from the point of view of a father with ``a sickness in my bones'', singing of his pain at leaving his loved ones behind: ``Before I disappear, whisper in my ear/Give me something to echo in my unknown future's ear . . .''
There's something you don't often get with a Pearl Jam album. A lump in the throat.
Pearl Jam's ninth surprises
Noel Mengel
24 September 2009
The Courier-Mail
1 - First with the news
55
ROCK
Pearl Jam
Backspacer
(Universal) ****
``WHEN something's dark let me shed a little light on it,'' Eddie Vedder sings on The Fixer, one of several short, sharp, punchy pop-rock numbers on the band's ninth album. And further: ``When something's gone I wanna fight to get it back again.''
He's not joking. Bands are not in the habit of making their best records 18 years into their career, but a case can certainly be put for the Backspacer being as good as any album Pearl Jam has ever released.
It's an album that might surprise some of their devoted fans but also one that people who don't care much for Pearl Jam, or haven't for a long time, will enjoy too. Backspacer overcomes any tendencies to earnestness, and the exuberance in the music makes this album feel like a celebration.
It's almost as if Vedder has let the inner I See Red fan in him -- and he is a Split Enz fan -- rise to the surface and everyone else has caught the bug. Some Pearl Jam albums feel overworked. This is lean, filler-free.
The reunion with producer Brendan O'Brien for the first time since 1998's Yield may have something to do with it.
But the songs are there this time, there was no mucking around in the studio trying to write them, and sessions for most of the songs were wrapped up in two weeks.
The opening quartet of tunes are rockers, all perfect for the live stage. Gonna See My Friend and Got Some are tough, punky, in a New York-CBGBs kind of way. And The Fixer is such a feelgood blast that it might even get them some radio airplay. That gives way to Just Breathe, a gentle, fingerpicked acoustic guitar song, a love song no less, complete with string arrangement. That completes side one, as doubtless Pearl Jam imagined the album in its vinyl format when they sequenced the tracks.
Side two broadens the sound from the more direct assault of those opening songs.
Amongst The Waves and Unthought Known are big, Who-like anthems -- Quadrophenia era -- with some razor-sharp lead guitar lines and pounding drums.
Vedder's lyrics are looking in, there's a personal rawness to them that keeps the album on a human scale. Clearly, he's experiencing what everyone does in maturity, the feeling that time is not just passing but accelerating.
``Yesterdays, how quick they change, all lost and gone now,'' he sings on Speed of Sound, another powerful anthem in this album's second half.
Again, there is an acoustic track with strings to close ``side two''. The End might borrow a Beatles title but it's more like their Eleanor Rigby, written from the point of view of a father with ``a sickness in my bones'', singing of his pain at leaving his loved ones behind: ``Before I disappear, whisper in my ear/Give me something to echo in my unknown future's ear . . .''
There's something you don't often get with a Pearl Jam album. A lump in the throat.
Up here so high I start to shake, Up here so high the sky I scrape, I've no fear but for falling down, So look out below I am falling now, Falling down,...not staying down, Could’ve held me up, rather tear me down, Drown in the river
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Comments
Really? I get that at least twice a record.
for the least they could possibly do