Dark Matter album reviews

primussucks

Post them here, as well as your own!

primussucks

bicyclejoe

Irish Times

Pearl Jam: Dark Matter – Eddie Vedder and co return with a tempestuous back-to-basics album

Producer Andrew Watt helps grunge stalwarts with what he did for The Rolling Stones last year: roll years back while avoiding parody

4/5
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/music/review/2024/04/11/pearl-jam-dark-matter-eddie-vedder-and-co-return-with-a-tempestuous-back-to-basics-album/

You can see why Watt’s work is so appealing to rock stars of a particular vintage. With last year’s Hackney Diamonds he coaxed the Stones back to their classic sound while deftly steering them away from self-pastiche. They sounded like the Stones of yore – but never to the point of parody.

He conjures similar magic on Dark Matter, a slab of rock’n’roll protein self-consciously in the tradition of the early Pearl Jam classics Ten and Vs. Although nowhere near as urgent as those LPs – this is audibly the work of wealthy men in late middle age – it nonetheless lands its blows with gusto.

bicyclejoe

“Some will hear a fiery rebirth after a series of more stilted or staid Pearl Jam collections. Some will hear a pale shadow of past glories. Yet some will hear all they need: a new Pearl Jam album, delivered as they approach their final act, sounding like nobody but themselves.“ 

https://www.stereogum.com/2257306/premature-evaluation-pearl-jam-dark-matter/reviews/premature-evaluation/

bicyclejoe

https://www.scenepointblank.com/reviews/pearl-jam/dark-matter/

7/10

bicyclejoe

Pearl Jam Bridge Their Eras, Illuminate the Grey with ‘Dark Matter’ (Album Review)

https://rockcellarmagazine.com/pearl-jam-dark-matter-album-review-listen-eddie-vedder/#google_vignette

bicyclejoe

New Zealand Herald

“While the band only really operates in two gears - fast and not fast - they continue to find nuance and room to explore within them. Although, McCready proves to be the outlier - and MVP - of the band by being firmly stuck on turbo-mode whenever he gets the nod to start soloing no matter what’s going on around him.

The heavier songs are undoubtedly the strongest parts of the album, immediately eliciting a visceral response. The slower songs do require a little more bedding-in time but get more appealing with each spin. And no matter what, you’re never too far away from a blistering solo or anthemic chorus.

This is the most ‘Pearl Jam’ that Pearl Jam has sounded in years and I’d be happy to hear any number of the album’s songs in their live set come November. And while those space scientists may be stuck in disagreement, here Pearl Jam has done more than enough to justify Dark Matter’s existence.”

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/the-verdict-on-pearl-jams-new-record-dark-matter-karl-puschman/ESFWFNZU4ZFHHDWWITBZI4PODQ/

bicyclejoe

REVIEW: ‘Dark Matter’ shows Pearl Jam, America’s most reliable band, isn’t slowing down

https://riffmagazine.com/album-reviews/pearl-jam-dark-matter/#google_vignette

PJNB

bicyclejoe said:

https://www.scenepointblank.com/reviews/pearl-jam/dark-matter/

7/10

Not sure who this guy is but he gave LB a 8.3 and Gigaton a 7.8

Giving DM a 6.8 is pretty low based off of those other scores and quality of albums. 

primussucks

bicyclejoe said:

Pearl Jam Bridge Their Eras, Illuminate the Grey with ‘Dark Matter’ (Album Review)

https://rockcellarmagazine.com/pearl-jam-dark-matter-album-review-listen-eddie-vedder/#google_vignette

Pretty great review here!

primussucks

bigbiggzy

Dang…. 

alexross42

Also from the NZ Herald as posted above, this in particular stuck out as the Radiohead and Verve references seem a little at odds to everything else being said about this song:

"McCready also steps up to save Waiting for Stevie, a song that recalls The Bends-era Radiohead or Urban Hymns-era The Verve, until the guitarist’s scorching fretwork pulls it into a double-time sprint"

🤔

(https://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/the-verdict-on-pearl-jams-new-record-dark-matter-karl-puschman/ESFWFNZU4ZFHHDWWITBZI4PODQ/)

Planet of Sound

Fake Plastic Drugs Don’t Work, or maybe Planet Sonnet, or perhaps Bitter Sweet Spirit (Fade Out).  

Maybe that’s why Richard Ashcroft is supporting in London!

JR8321

Short but sweet:

https://www.overdrive.ie/album-review-pearl-jam-dark-matter/

ALBUM REVIEW – PEARL JAM ‘DARK MATTER’

Posted on April 12, 2024 by Oran

Pearl Jam return with an album that showcases the bands’ exceptional ability to create raw, sincere, and undoubtedly, great alternative rock music. ‘Dark Matter’ is a return to form that, I for one, did not see coming…

… ‘Scared of Fear‘ gallops out with burning intensity.

Overall, there is a tremendous live sound across all eleven tracks, specifically Jeff Ament’s bass mix, which gives songs such as the punk-infused, ‘React-Respond‘, title track, ‘Dark Matter‘, ‘Waiting for Stevie‘ (where Vedder gives huge Chris Cornell vibes), and the barn-burner that is ‘Running‘, giving the impression that this is a hungry band in the mid-twenties, ready to take on the world… once again.

‘Dark Matter‘ is devoid of ‘fat‘! In fact, I wonder if the band (conscious of the criticism towards ‘Gigaton‘) trimmed the songs multiple times, stripping back to the very core intensity of each track? If this is the case, then it’s the best decision Pearl Jam have made in their recent recording history. What we are left with is an album where each track seamlessly floats into the next, each with their own huge, anthemic presence.

With focus on exceptional songwriting, which has sadly become somewhat of a lost art when comparing bands of this vintage, Pearl Jam have knocked it out of the park here, and long may it continue. 4/5

chrisr211977

Thank God or whomever is behind Pearl Jam reviews. Maybe He likes Nirvana more.

greenwoodlogan102498

alexross42 said:

Also from the NZ Herald as posted above, this in particular stuck out as the Radiohead and Verve references seem a little at odds to everything else being said about this song:

"McCready also steps up to save Waiting for Stevie, a song that recalls The Bends-era Radiohead or Urban Hymns-era The Verve, until the guitarist’s scorching fretwork pulls it into a double-time sprint"

🤔

(https://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/the-verdict-on-pearl-jams-new-record-dark-matter-karl-puschman/ESFWFNZU4ZFHHDWWITBZI4PODQ/)

Listen to the song Just on The Bends, I can hear something like that being on Dark Matter and it does have elements that recall Breath and SOLAT imo 

mookeywrench

Dang, this might even get a 6.2 in pitchfork

kmcmanus

mookeywrench said:

Dang, this might even get a 6.2 in pitchfork

Nah those are prime-era Radiohead numbers for P4K

pjl44

bicyclejoe said:

“Some will hear a fiery rebirth after a series of more stilted or staid Pearl Jam collections. Some will hear a pale shadow of past glories. Yet some will hear all they need: a new Pearl Jam album, delivered as they approach their final act, sounding like nobody but themselves.“ 

https://www.stereogum.com/2257306/premature-evaluation-pearl-jam-dark-matter/reviews/premature-evaluation/

Some brutal lines in that one

Sea

Please do not forget to post only portions of articles and link to the rest. We respect copyrights and we do not want additional contacts from outlets about their copyrighted material being fully posted. Thank you.

chrisr211977

kmcmanus said:

mookeywrench said:

Dang, this might even get a 6.2 in pitchfork

Nah those are prime-era Radiohead numbers for P4K

I had never even seen a shooting star before. 25 years of rotations, passes through comets' paths, and travel, and to my memory I had never witnessed burning debris scratch across the night sky. Pearl Jam were hunched over their instruments. Eddie Vedder slowly beat on a grand piano, singing, eyes closed, into his microphone like he was trying to kiss around a big nose. Jeff Ament tapped patiently on a double bass, waiting for his cue. White pearls of arena light swam over their faces. A lazy disco light spilled artificial constellations inside the aluminum cove of the makeshift stage. The metal skeleton of the stage ate one end of Florence's Piazza Santa Croce, on the steps of the Santa Croce Cathedral. Michelangelo's bones and cobblestone laid beneath. I stared entranced, soaking in Pearl Jam's new material, chiseling each sound into the best functioning parts of my brain which would be the only sound system for the material for months.

The butterscotch lamps along the walls of the tight city square bled upward into the cobalt sky, which seemed as strikingly artificial and perfect as a wizard's cap. The staccato piano chords ascended repeatedly. "Black eyed angels swam at me," Vedder sang like his dying words. "There was nothing to fear, nothing to hide." The trained critical part of me marked the similarity to Coltrane's "Ole." The human part of me wept in awe.

The Italians surrounding me held their breath in communion (save for the drunken few shouting "Alieve!"). Suddenly, a rise of whistles and orgasmic cries swept unfittingly through the crowd. The song, "Dance of The Clairvoyants," was certainly momentous, but wasn't the response more apt for, well, "Alive?" I looked up. I thought it was fireworks. A teardrop of fire shot from space and disappeared behind the church where the syrupy River Arno crawled. Pear; Jamhad the heavens on their side.

For further testament, Chip Chanko and I both suffered auto-debilitating accidents in the same week, in different parts of the country, while blasting "Rearviewmirror" in our respective Japanese imports. For months, I feared playing the song about car crashes in my car, just as I'd feared passing 18- wheelers after nearly being crushed by one in 1990. With good reason, I suspect Pear; Jam to possess incomprehensible powers. The evidence is only compounded with Dark Matter-- the rubber match in the band's legacy-- an album which completely obliterates how albums, and Pearl Jam themselves, will be considered.

Even the heralded Ten has been nudged down one spot in Valhalla. Dark Matter makes rock and roll childish. Considerations on its merits as "rock" (i.e. its radio fodder potential, its guitar riffs, and its hooks) are pointless. Comparing this to other albums is like comparing an aquarium to blue construction paper. And not because it's jazz or fusion or ambient or electronic. Classifications don't come to mind once deep inside this expansive, hypnotic world. Ransom, the philologist hero of C.S. Lewis' Out of the Silent Planet who is kidnapped and taken to another planet, initially finds his scholarship useless in his new surroundings, and just tries to survive the beautiful new world.

This is an emotional, psychological experience. Dark Matter sounds like a clouded brain trying to recall an alien abduction. It's the sound of a band, and its leader, losing faith in themselves, destroying themselves, and subsequently rebuilding a perfect entity. In other words, Pearl Jam hated being Pearl Jam, but ended up with the most ideal, natural Pearl Jam record yet.

"Scared of Fear" opens like Close Encounters spaceships communicating with pipe organs. As your ears decide whether the tones are coming or going, Eddie Vedder's Cuisinarted voice struggles for its tongue. "Scared of fear," Vedder belts in uplifting sighs. The first-person mantra of "There are two colors in my head" is repeated until the line between Vedder's mind and the listener's mind is erased.

Skittering toy boxes open the album's title song, which, like the track "Waiting For Stevie," shows a heavy Warp Records influence. The vocoder lullaby lulls you deceivingly before the riotous "Setting Sun." Mean, fuzzy bass shapes the spine as unnerving theremin choirs limn. Brash brass bursts from above like Terry Gilliam's animated foot. The horns swarm as Vedder screams, begs, "Turn it off!" It's the album's shrill peak, but just one of the incessant goosebumps raisers.

After the rockets exhaust, Pearl Jam float in their lone orbit. "Running" boils down "Indifference" and "Release" to their spectral essence. The string-laden ballad comes closest to bridging Vedder's lyrical sentiment to the instrumental effect. "Lost in the tunnel and the tunnel's getting funneled like the sewage in the plumbing 'cause we left the ***ing water running," he sings in his trademark falsetto. The strings melt and weep as the album shifts into its underwater mode. "React, Respond," an ambient soundscape similar in sound and intent to Side B of Bowie and Eno's Low, calms after the record's emotionally strenuous first half.

The primal, brooding guitar attack of "Won't Tell" stomps like mating Tyrannosaurs. The lyrics seemingly taunt, "Won't tell," before revealing the more resigned sentiment, "Won't tell." For an album reportedly "lacking" in traditional Pearl Jam moments, this is the best summation of their former strengths. The track erodes into a light jam before morphing into "Upper Hand." "Upper hand," Vedder cries over clean, uneasy arpeggios. The ending flares with tractor beams as Vedder is vacuumed into nothingness. The aforementioned "Waiting For Stevie" clicks and thuds like Aphex Twin and Bjork's Homogenic, revealing brilliant new frontiers for the "band." For all the noise to this point, it's uncertain entirely who or what has created the music. There are rarely traditional arrangements in the ambiguous origin. This is part of the unique thrill of experiencing Dark Matter.

Pulsing organs and a stuttering snare delicately propel "Got To Give." Vedder's breath can be heard frosting over the rainy, gray jam. Words accumulate and stick in his mouth like eye crust. "Got to give," he mumbles while Mike McCready squirts whale-chant feedback from his guitar. The closing "Something Special" brings to mind The White Album, as it somehow combines the sentiment of Lennon's LP1 closer-- the ode to his dead mother, "Julia"-- with Ringo and Paul’s maudlin, yet sincere LP2 finale, "Goodnight." Pump organ and harp flutter as Vedder condones with affection, "I think you're crazy." To further emphasize your feeling at that moment and the album's overall theme, Vedder bows out with "I will see you in the next life." If you're not already there with him.

The experience and emotions tied to listening to Dark Matter are like witnessing the stillborn birth of a child while simultaneously having the opportunity to see her play in the afterlife on Imax. It's an album of sparking paradox. It's cacophonous yet tranquil, experimental yet familiar, foreign yet womb-like, spacious yet visceral, textured yet vaporous, awakening yet dreamlike, infinite yet 48 minutes. It will cleanse your brain of those little crustaceans of worries and inferior albums clinging inside the fold of your gray matter. The harrowing sounds hit from unseen angles and emanate with inhuman genesis. When the headphones peel off, and it occurs that six men (Andrew Watt included) created this, it's clear that Pearl Jam must be the greatest band alive, if not the best since you know who. Breathing people made this record! And you can't wait to dive back in and try to prove that wrong over and over.

cblock4life

pjl44 said:

bicyclejoe said:

“Some will hear a fiery rebirth after a series of more stilted or staid Pearl Jam collections. Some will hear a pale shadow of past glories. Yet some will hear all they need: a new Pearl Jam album, delivered as they approach their final act, sounding like nobody but themselves.“ 

https://www.stereogum.com/2257306/premature-evaluation-pearl-jam-dark-matter/reviews/premature-evaluation/

Some brutal lines in that one

Yes, I agree.  There were a couple things written that were encouraging but damn the last line is a mood killer for sure. Being the same age as the band with what was written I feel like we should either put ourselves out of our misery or out to pasture.  

 I feel like they should just say “screw it” and spend the rest of their time catering to all those who’ve followed and understood since the beginning.  I’m not reading anymore reviews from now on.  I’ll just wait and judge myself.  

lastexitlondon

chrisr211977 said:

kmcmanus said:

mookeywrench said:

Dang, this might even get a 6.2 in pitchfork

Nah those are prime-era Radiohead numbers for P4K

I had never even seen a shooting star before. 25 years of rotations, passes through comets' paths, and travel, and to my memory I had never witnessed burning debris scratch across the night sky. Pearl Jam were hunched over their instruments. Eddie Vedder slowly beat on a grand piano, singing, eyes closed, into his microphone like he was trying to kiss around a big nose. Jeff Ament tapped patiently on a double bass, waiting for his cue. White pearls of arena light swam over their faces. A lazy disco light spilled artificial constellations inside the aluminum cove of the makeshift stage. The metal skeleton of the stage ate one end of Florence's Piazza Santa Croce, on the steps of the Santa Croce Cathedral. Michelangelo's bones and cobblestone laid beneath. I stared entranced, soaking in Pearl Jam's new material, chiseling each sound into the best functioning parts of my brain which would be the only sound system for the material for months.

The butterscotch lamps along the walls of the tight city square bled upward into the cobalt sky, which seemed as strikingly artificial and perfect as a wizard's cap. The staccato piano chords ascended repeatedly. "Black eyed angels swam at me," Vedder sang like his dying words. "There was nothing to fear, nothing to hide." The trained critical part of me marked the similarity to Coltrane's "Ole." The human part of me wept in awe.

The Italians surrounding me held their breath in communion (save for the drunken few shouting "Alieve!"). Suddenly, a rise of whistles and orgasmic cries swept unfittingly through the crowd. The song, "Dance of The Clairvoyants," was certainly momentous, but wasn't the response more apt for, well, "Alive?" I looked up. I thought it was fireworks. A teardrop of fire shot from space and disappeared behind the church where the syrupy River Arno crawled. Radiohead had the heavens on their side.

For further testament, Chip Chanko and I both suffered auto-debilitating accidents in the same week, in different parts of the country, while blasting "Rearviewmirror" in our respective Japanese imports. For months, I feared playing the song about car crashes in my car, just as I'd feared passing 18- wheelers after nearly being crushed by one in 1990. With good reason, I suspect Pear; Jam to possess incomprehensible powers. The evidence is only compounded with Dark Matter-- the rubber match in the band's legacy-- an album which completely obliterates how albums, and Pearl Jam themselves, will be considered.

Even the heralded Ten has been nudged down one spot in Valhalla. Dark Matter makes rock and roll childish. Considerations on its merits as "rock" (i.e. its radio fodder potential, its guitar riffs, and its hooks) are pointless. Comparing this to other albums is like comparing an aquarium to blue construction paper. And not because it's jazz or fusion or ambient or electronic. Classifications don't come to mind once deep inside this expansive, hypnotic world. Ransom, the philologist hero of C.S. Lewis' Out of the Silent Planet who is kidnapped and taken to another planet, initially finds his scholarship useless in his new surroundings, and just tries to survive the beautiful new world.

This is an emotional, psychological experience. Dark Matter sounds like a clouded brain trying to recall an alien abduction. It's the sound of a band, and its leader, losing faith in themselves, destroying themselves, and subsequently rebuilding a perfect entity. In other words, Pearl Jam hated being Pearl Jam, but ended up with the most ideal, natural Pearl Jam record yet.

"Scared of Fear" opens like Close Encounters spaceships communicating with pipe organs. As your ears decide whether the tones are coming or going, Eddie Vedder's Cuisinarted voice struggles for its tongue. "Scared of fear," Vedder belts in uplifting sighs. The first-person mantra of "There are two colors in my head" is repeated until the line between Vedder's mind and the listener's mind is erased.

Skittering toy boxes open the album's title song, which, like the track "Waiting For Stevie," shows a heavy Warp Records influence. The vocoder lullaby lulls you deceivingly before the riotous "Setting Sun." Mean, fuzzy bass shapes the spine as unnerving theremin choirs limn. Brash brass bursts from above like Terry Gilliam's animated foot. The horns swarm as Vedder screams, begs, "Turn it off!" It's the album's shrill peak, but just one of the incessant goosebumps raisers.

After the rockets exhaust, Radiohead float in their lone orbit. "Running" boils down "Indifference" and "Release" to their spectral essence. The string-laden ballad comes closest to bridging Vedder's lyrical sentiment to the instrumental effect. "Lost in the tunnel and the tunnel's getting funneled like the sewage in the plumbing 'cause we left the ***ing water running," he sings in his trademark falsetto. The strings melt and weep as the album shifts into its underwater mode. "React, Respond," an ambient soundscape similar in sound and intent to Side B of Bowie and Eno's Low, calms after the record's emotionally strenuous first half.

The primal, brooding guitar attack of "Won't Tell" stomps like mating Tyrannosaurs. The lyrics seemingly taunt, "Won't tell," before revealing the more resigned sentiment, "The best you can is good enough." For an album reportedly "lacking" in traditional Pearl Jam moments, this is the best summation of their former strengths. The track erodes into a light jam before morphing into "Upper Hand." "Upper hand," Yorke cries over clean, uneasy arpeggios. The ending flares with tractor beams as Yorke is vacuumed into nothingness. The aforementioned "Waiting For Stevie" clicks and thuds like Aphex Twin and Bjork's Homogenic, revealing brilliant new frontiers for the "band." For all the noise to this point, it's uncertain entirely who or what has created the music. There are rarely traditional arrangements in the ambiguous origin. This is part of the unique thrill of experiencing Dark Matter.

Pulsing organs and a stuttering snare delicately propel "Got To Give." Vedder's breath can be heard frosting over the rainy, gray jam. Words accumulate and stick in his mouth like eye crust. "Got to give," he mumbles while Mike McCready squirts whale-chant feedback from his guitar. The closing "Something Special" brings to mind The White Album, as it somehow combines the sentiment of Lennon's LP1 closer-- the ode to his dead mother, "Julia"-- with Ringo and Paul’s maudlin, yet sincere LP2 finale, "Goodnight." Pump organ and harp flutter as Vedder condones with affection, "I think you're crazy." To further emphasize your feeling at that moment and the album's overall theme, Vedder bows out with "I will see you in the next life." If you're not already there with him.

The experience and emotions tied to listening to Dark Matter are like witnessing the stillborn birth of a child while simultaneously having the opportunity to see her play in the afterlife on Imax. It's an album of sparking paradox. It's cacophonous yet tranquil, experimental yet familiar, foreign yet womb-like, spacious yet visceral, textured yet vaporous, awakening yet dreamlike, infinite yet 48 minutes. It will cleanse your brain of those little crustaceans of worries and inferior albums clinging inside the fold of your gray matter. The harrowing sounds hit from unseen angles and emanate with inhuman genesis. When the headphones peel off, and it occurs that six men (Andrew Watt included) created this, it's clear that Pearl Jam must be the greatest band alive, if not the best since you know who. Breathing people made this record! And you can't wait to dive back in and try to prove that wrong over and over.

What the hell is this?

Niko80

It's their review of Kid A, just re-written in the pj universe. 

Kid A got a perfect score. 

spankyMP

🤣 I thought it was AI.

evenflow82

Is anyone ever sick of hearing Nirvana brought up in PJ reviews? When I read a review of the new rolling Stones album I don't hear about the Beatles or led Zeppelin. 

It isn't the high school parking lot in 1992 anymore. 

igotid88

evenflow82 said:

Is anyone ever sick of hearing Nirvana brought up in PJ reviews? When I read a review of the new rolling Stones album I don't hear about the Beatles or led Zeppelin. 

It isn't the high school parking lot in 1992 anymore. 

Yea. Been saying it for years. Either about their old sound or Nirvana

WW187806

So, lastexit. I have not heard the new songs yet, but it seems as if this gentleman weaved in other things as he was afraid of it maybe being ripped off board? The language and vocabulary are actually impressive. I am interested to see if some of his word choices do fit songs, because as I gather from interviews and the first two singles... this album is DEEP, and would require words in the English language that are not typical, good, great, awesome, sick, fire... lol. Time will tell. Whenever I hear it... I'll give honest opinion from what my ears hear. Things are getting really interesting now, this has been a long wait... great but "stressful" promo leadup! Loved the observer, just wish there were like b sides or jams or something where we could've heard other aspects of Dark Matter, because... as someone really astute sings, "The waiting drove me mad!"

lastexitlondon said:

chrisr211977 said:

kmcmanus said:

mookeywrench said:

Dang, this might even get a 6.2 in pitchfork

Nah those are prime-era Radiohead numbers for P4K

I had never even seen a shooting star before. 25 years of rotations, passes through comets' paths, and travel, and to my memory I had never witnessed burning debris scratch across the night sky. Pearl Jam were hunched over their instruments. Eddie Vedder slowly beat on a grand piano, singing, eyes closed, into his microphone like he was trying to kiss around a big nose. Jeff Ament tapped patiently on a double bass, waiting for his cue. White pearls of arena light swam over their faces. A lazy disco light spilled artificial constellations inside the aluminum cove of the makeshift stage. The metal skeleton of the stage ate one end of Florence's Piazza Santa Croce, on the steps of the Santa Croce Cathedral. Michelangelo's bones and cobblestone laid beneath. I stared entranced, soaking in Pearl Jam's new material, chiseling each sound into the best functioning parts of my brain which would be the only sound system for the material for months.

The butterscotch lamps along the walls of the tight city square bled upward into the cobalt sky, which seemed as strikingly artificial and perfect as a wizard's cap. The staccato piano chords ascended repeatedly. "Black eyed angels swam at me," Vedder sang like his dying words. "There was nothing to fear, nothing to hide." The trained critical part of me marked the similarity to Coltrane's "Ole." The human part of me wept in awe.

The Italians surrounding me held their breath in communion (save for the drunken few shouting "Alieve!"). Suddenly, a rise of whistles and orgasmic cries swept unfittingly through the crowd. The song, "Dance of The Clairvoyants," was certainly momentous, but wasn't the response more apt for, well, "Alive?" I looked up. I thought it was fireworks. A teardrop of fire shot from space and disappeared behind the church where the syrupy River Arno crawled. Radiohead had the heavens on their side.

For further testament, Chip Chanko and I both suffered auto-debilitating accidents in the same week, in different parts of the country, while blasting "Rearviewmirror" in our respective Japanese imports. For months, I feared playing the song about car crashes in my car, just as I'd feared passing 18- wheelers after nearly being crushed by one in 1990. With good reason, I suspect Pear; Jam to possess incomprehensible powers. The evidence is only compounded with Dark Matter-- the rubber match in the band's legacy-- an album which completely obliterates how albums, and Pearl Jam themselves, will be considered.

Even the heralded Ten has been nudged down one spot in Valhalla. Dark Matter makes rock and roll childish. Considerations on its merits as "rock" (i.e. its radio fodder potential, its guitar riffs, and its hooks) are pointless. Comparing this to other albums is like comparing an aquarium to blue construction paper. And not because it's jazz or fusion or ambient or electronic. Classifications don't come to mind once deep inside this expansive, hypnotic world. Ransom, the philologist hero of C.S. Lewis' Out of the Silent Planet who is kidnapped and taken to another planet, initially finds his scholarship useless in his new surroundings, and just tries to survive the beautiful new world.

This is an emotional, psychological experience. Dark Matter sounds like a clouded brain trying to recall an alien abduction. It's the sound of a band, and its leader, losing faith in themselves, destroying themselves, and subsequently rebuilding a perfect entity. In other words, Pearl Jam hated being Pearl Jam, but ended up with the most ideal, natural Pearl Jam record yet.

"Scared of Fear" opens like Close Encounters spaceships communicating with pipe organs. As your ears decide whether the tones are coming or going, Eddie Vedder's Cuisinarted voice struggles for its tongue. "Scared of fear," Vedder belts in uplifting sighs. The first-person mantra of "There are two colors in my head" is repeated until the line between Vedder's mind and the listener's mind is erased.

Skittering toy boxes open the album's title song, which, like the track "Waiting For Stevie," shows a heavy Warp Records influence. The vocoder lullaby lulls you deceivingly before the riotous "Setting Sun." Mean, fuzzy bass shapes the spine as unnerving theremin choirs limn. Brash brass bursts from above like Terry Gilliam's animated foot. The horns swarm as Vedder screams, begs, "Turn it off!" It's the album's shrill peak, but just one of the incessant goosebumps raisers.

After the rockets exhaust, Radiohead float in their lone orbit. "Running" boils down "Indifference" and "Release" to their spectral essence. The string-laden ballad comes closest to bridging Vedder's lyrical sentiment to the instrumental effect. "Lost in the tunnel and the tunnel's getting funneled like the sewage in the plumbing 'cause we left the ***ing water running," he sings in his trademark falsetto. The strings melt and weep as the album shifts into its underwater mode. "React, Respond," an ambient soundscape similar in sound and intent to Side B of Bowie and Eno's Low, calms after the record's emotionally strenuous first half.

The primal, brooding guitar attack of "Won't Tell" stomps like mating Tyrannosaurs. The lyrics seemingly taunt, "Won't tell," before revealing the more resigned sentiment, "The best you can is good enough." For an album reportedly "lacking" in traditional Pearl Jam moments, this is the best summation of their former strengths. The track erodes into a light jam before morphing into "Upper Hand." "Upper hand," Yorke cries over clean, uneasy arpeggios. The ending flares with tractor beams as Yorke is vacuumed into nothingness. The aforementioned "Waiting For Stevie" clicks and thuds like Aphex Twin and Bjork's Homogenic, revealing brilliant new frontiers for the "band." For all the noise to this point, it's uncertain entirely who or what has created the music. There are rarely traditional arrangements in the ambiguous origin. This is part of the unique thrill of experiencing Dark Matter.

Pulsing organs and a stuttering snare delicately propel "Got To Give." Vedder's breath can be heard frosting over the rainy, gray jam. Words accumulate and stick in his mouth like eye crust. "Got to give," he mumbles while Mike McCready squirts whale-chant feedback from his guitar. The closing "Something Special" brings to mind The White Album, as it somehow combines the sentiment of Lennon's LP1 closer-- the ode to his dead mother, "Julia"-- with Ringo and Paul’s maudlin, yet sincere LP2 finale, "Goodnight." Pump organ and harp flutter as Vedder condones with affection, "I think you're crazy." To further emphasize your feeling at that moment and the album's overall theme, Vedder bows out with "I will see you in the next life." If you're not already there with him.

The experience and emotions tied to listening to Dark Matter are like witnessing the stillborn birth of a child while simultaneously having the opportunity to see her play in the afterlife on Imax. It's an album of sparking paradox. It's cacophonous yet tranquil, experimental yet familiar, foreign yet womb-like, spacious yet visceral, textured yet vaporous, awakening yet dreamlike, infinite yet 48 minutes. It will cleanse your brain of those little crustaceans of worries and inferior albums clinging inside the fold of your gray matter. The harrowing sounds hit from unseen angles and emanate with inhuman genesis. When the headphones peel off, and it occurs that six men (Andrew Watt included) created this, it's clear that Pearl Jam must be the greatest band alive, if not the best since you know who. Breathing people made this record! And you can't wait to dive back in and try to prove that wrong over and over.

What the hell is this?

mookeywrench

Quips that also need to be retired:

Aging rock stars
From the ashes of mother love bone.
Return to their roots

Ten Backspaced Riot Actors

Wrong thread