Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Pearl Jam
Label: Universal Music Group
Release: 2009
Length: 36:33
Rating: 4/5
“Backspacer” is the ninth studio album from Pearl Jam. It picks up the story from “Pearl Jam” (2006), and the guys keep on stirring a bruising rock mix of rowdy swagger that breathes out nostalgic winds, the kind once stirred up by the first “garage good-for-nothing” bands, from The Stooges all the way to The Who. But Pearl Jam-style, of course. Grunge is ancient history for them. Buried, with every trace carefully wiped away. All that’s left of those years of youth and madness is Eddie Vedder’s signature voice, which, through today’s message, beams out a totally different face, a different expressive energy!
With “Backspacer” we’re talking about moments, if you will, of Pearl Jam’s loudest preaching in the “post Vitalogy” era. The opening stretch is also an extremely biting, sharp album. The band’s concise, in-your-face, modern-day everyman attitude lives on. Eleven songs and a mere 36 minutes of music. It doesn’t get tighter than that!
The album rolls through its first four songs at a brisk clip before you’ve even managed a proper breath in and out. The music is wonderfully simple in design, yet it delivers rich messaging and real “oomph” in the performance. It sounds live, even garage-live! Once again Pearl Jam have poured piercing poetry into these songs, keeping the provocativeness, the rebellious streak, the sworn loyalty to nothing but the individual’s truth, and in the calmer songs the personal, confessional side glows. In Eddie Vedder’s hands that once again brings to “Backspacer” the very virtue that lifts the name Pearl Jam a big qualitative step above the sea of rock bands of all stripes, especially those still wet behind the ears, which today function as one-day manufactured concoctions with a fleeting shine, spiritual immaturity and messaging poverty, backed by the pockets of stage-parent moguls and the vain greed of corporations chasing a quick buck. Of those first four breakneck songs, the one that definitely stands out for its variety and its interesting mix of verse and chorus is Fixer, the album’s first peak. Vedder’s colorful, deeply lived-in and sensually real vocal approach especially is the element that gives this song its special charm while you listen to the new album.
The middle of the album is calm, and in Just Breathe Vedder’s power of subtlety shines in its best light. The strumming of the acoustic guitar works like a muted babbling brook that slots perfectly into Vedder’s fragile, confessional delivery. Magic. An excellent mood switch, heading back into electric but still more controlled waters, comes with another wonderfully pretty gem right after that acoustic ballad, Amongst The Waves. The personal confession carries on with undiminished power in Untought Known. Mid-tempo beat, a heightened atmosphere, Vedder’s colorful, chameleon-like, feeling-soaked voice fanning the potency of Pearl Jam’s music and teasing the listener. Speed Of Sound offers more than fitting atmosphere and energy. In both songs the guys also masterfully add keyboards, which help build a melancholic mood. A superior suspension of all the Pearl Jam building blocks, with Vedder at the helm, of course! Vedder’s vocals grow ever stronger in their confessional expression the further the songs drift toward balladry, acoustic sounds and orchestral arrangements. Come again? Yes. Orchestral arrangements. If not before, then the album’s second ballad, the closing The End, will put a big lump in your throat, as Vedder’s expressive depth of feeling, unique to this singer alone, literally floods the album!
The energy of debauchery from the album’s opening stretch comes back with Supersonic. A rock n’ roll pulser of the kind we’ve pretty much gotten used to from the band in the “post-Vitalogy” era. One of the album’s most melodic moments surfaces toward the end, with the chorus of Force Of Nature. Here Pearl Jam signal that they left the moments of depression, the urge for destruction, even self-destruction, far behind them long ago. What’s stressed instead is the mature stamp of melancholy and nostalgic longing. So the guys have become grown men.
In the production Pearl Jam kept a strong, natural sound. The guitars carry that slightly raspy tone that reinforces the wall of sound, with no special cosmetic aids. The band keeps the production lively, dynamic, and to a degree organically raw. Of course today it’s considerably more controlled than it once was. That mostly comes from the band members themselves, who’ve healed the youthful wounds of an unbridled need to validate the ego. These days the band’s ability to say everything it wants, and far sooner, shines through more and more, in shorter and even clearer strokes, with no special tangles or long-windedness. The psychedelic, cerebral element has thus vanished completely from the band’s present-day image. At certain points “Backspacer” is the hardest-hitting “post Vitalogy” Pearl Jam album production-wise so far, while in the calm moments it’s superbly “balanced,” or “counterweighted,” with confessional fragility and tenderness. Once again rich in message, comparable to nothing but the unique essence of this band. Now everybody run to the store for your copy of this album!
Lineup
Eddie Vedder – vocals, guitar
Stone Gossard – guitar
Mike McCready – guitar
Jeff Ament – bass
Matt Cameron – drums, percussion
GUEST MUSICIANS:
Justin Bruns – violin
Christopher Pulgram – violin
Cathy Lynn – viola
Richard Deane – French horn
Susan Welty – French horn
Bruce Andrus – French horn
Danny Laufer – cello
Brendan O’Brien – backing vocals
Production
Brendan O’Brien
Tracklist
1. Gonna See My Friend
2. Got Some
3. The Fixer
4. Johnny Guitar
5. Just Breathe
6. Amongst The Wave
7. Unthought Known
8. Supersonic
9. Speed Of Sound
10. Force Of Nature
11. The End
