Backspacer

Performer: Pearl Jam
Distributor: n/a

Notes: Of all the bands to emerge from the early `90s grunge explosion, Pearl Jam was both the longest-lived and most consistently interesting. After several albums that found the group taking an increasingly experimental direction, the Seattle quintet returned to its straight-ahead hard rock roots with 2006's self-titled effort. In 2009 however, Pearl Jam surprised fans again with an album containing some of the unit's catchiest, poppiest songs ever. According to lead vocalist Eddie Vedder, most of the new material was written prior to recording, which was a significant departure from the group's usual in-studio jamming method of composition. The result is one of the unit's most focused and accessible works since the debut album TEN. The first single "The Fixer" (written my drummer Matt Cameron) is a Kiss-like bit of straight-up pop masquerading as hard rock, while "Just Breathe" is melancholy acoustic singer-songwriter music so sharply crafted it would fit well on an Jack Johnson album. Throughout, Pearl Jam performs with its trademark directness, mustering the kind of earthy, cohesive sound that only veteran bands can deliver. Pearl Jam made peace with their hard rock past on their eponymous eighth album, but its 2009 sequel, Backspacer, is where the group really gets back to basics, bringing in old cohort Brendan O'Brien to produce for the first time since 1998's Yield. To a certain extent, the band has reached the point in its career where every move, every cranked amp, every short tough song is heralded as a return to form -- call it the Stones syndrome -- and so it is with Backspacer, whose meaty riffs have no less vigor than those of Pearl Jam; they're just channeled into a brighter, cheerier package. Despite this lighter spirit, Pearl Jam remain the antithesis of lighthearted good-time rock & roll -- they're convinced rock & roll is a calling, not a diversion -- but there's a tonal shift from the clenched anger that's marked their music of the new millennium, a transition from the global toward the personal. Ironically, by looking within the music opens up, as the group isn't fighting against the dying light but embracing how this most classicist of alt-rock bands is an anachronism in 2009. Of course, Pearl Jam were an anachronism even back in 1992, worshiping the Who instead of the Stooges, but this odd out-of-phase devotion to the ideals of post-hippie, pre-punk rock is better suited to bandmembers in their forties than in their twenties; fashion has passed them by several times over, leaving Pearl Jam just to be who they are, comfortable in their weathering skin. Pearl Jam battled their success for so long, intent on whittling their audience down to the devout, that it often felt like a chore to keep pace with the band because no matter the merit of the records, they always felt like heavy lifting, but that's no longer the case: here, as on the self-titled 2006 album, it sounds as if they enjoy being in a band, intoxicated by the noise they make. This means, all things considered, Backspacer is a party record for Pearl Jam -- a party that might consist of nothing but philosophical debates till the wee hours, but a party nonetheless -- and if 18 years is a long, long wait for a band to finally throw a party, it's also true that, prior to Backspacer, Pearl Jam wouldn't or couldn't have made music this unfettered, unapologetically assured, casual, and, yes, fun. [A Deluxe Edition was also released.] ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Rolling Stone (pp.73-74) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "[W]ith the shortest, tightest, punkiest tunes they've ever banged out....Eddie Vedder's heart-on-fire vocals are the main attraction, as always." Spin (p.76) - "The band hasn't put together a trifecta this energized and from-the-gut in a decade..." Billboard (p.52) - "The whole album has a pleasurable mix of lean, mean rock'n'roll and pensive ballads that reflect both the state of the world and the band's place in it." Q (Magazine) (p.119) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "[I]t's largely characterised by joyous new wave-influenced rock'n'roll, and for the first time in their 19-year career, Pearl Jam actually sound -- whisper it -- fun." Paste (magazine) (p.50) - "Most of their new album's first half alternates between gritty guitar-led jams and able pop-rock..."

Pearl Jam strode the middle of the neo-hard rock road manfully with their angst-ridden anthemic tunes bearing echoes of 1970s riff-rock. They arrived as part of Seattle's grunge explosion, with a sound less "punk" than Nirvana and less "metal" than Soundgarden. Radio, MTV, and fans responded accordingly, making them one of the biggest bands of the 1990s. Eddie Vedder's intense, impassioned style marks him as one of the most affecting vocalists in modern rock, and the group's battles against corporate giants like Ticketmaster have shown them to be a true "people's band."

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