Shockingly, out of all the ways Pearl Jam have previewed Dark Matter, the promise of a return to their early essence often feels the most apt. It’s another insinuation, a promise suggesting something along the lines of “If you miss the albums you loved when you were in your early twenties, fear not, we have finally made something that will give you euphoric recall.” This is, almost always, a completely inaccurate claim that sets up an album of echoes, duds, or signs that an artist is out of touch with what they’re currently making or who they are in this moment. Here’s another thing aging rockstars say: Whatever they’re releasing now, so many years down the road, is finally reminiscent of the initial classics. As ever, there are gems for the obsessives to find if they want. “Setting Sun” is a raggedly majestic closer. Opener “Scared Of Fear” is a nimble earworm, and mid-paced rockers like “Wreckage” are a lived-in continuation of Pearl Jam’s particular brand of grandeur. ![]() Elsewhere, focusing on the power of Cameron’s drums, big guitar leads, and Vedder’s immortal vocals actually results in some convincing arguments for a bread-and-butter Pearl Jam collection. Those tracks function as the now-requisite ragers on later Pearl Jam albums - placeholders, also-rans, the band straining but floundering. Upon the release of its advance singles “Dark Matter” and “Running,” this seemed to foreshadow a misfire full of clunky attempts at bygone ferocity. While it might not be as heavy as McCready suggested, Dark Matter is definitely a more invigorated rock-forward album. It makes complete sense they would find the result to be potent and vital. ![]() This time around, that was the sense of experimentation: What inherent Pearl Jam ethos could emerge from just playing together live? Rather than belabored arrangements and more spacious compositions, the band honed in on material that, while still bearing their trademark muscularity and Watt’s trademark slickness, does feel a little looser than any Pearl Jam album in recent memory. While four years is not a short period of time, the actual writing and recording of Dark Matter was breakneck relative to the extensive solitary demoing that eventually coalesced into Gigaton. As a group approaching their twilight years, Pearl Jam have understandably slowed down when it comes to releasing albums. Schedules delayed a second get-together, but eventually they congregated with Watt for another two-week session in 2023.īoom, that was it. In a complete reversal from their past several recordings, the five members of Pearl Jam gathered in a room, banged out ideas together, and wrote a host of songs in a matter of days. ![]() He told Stone Gossard, Jeff Ament, Mike McCready, and Matt Cameron to come down to Watt’s studio in LA, with a “Let’s just see what happens” kind of attitude. Spurred on by recording his 2022 solo LP Earthling with the young super-producer Andrew Watt, Eddie Vedder had an idea. The genesis of Dark Matter is a funny one - rapid, but spread out. While not exactly a complete apology for Gigaton, the comments the band have made thus far have an implicit undertone: If you didn’t like reflective aging Pearl Jam, don’t worry, we turned the guitars back up. Dark Matter now arrives as a complete about-face from that album. In comparison, those of us who prefer Pearl Jam’s searching middle years may have had warmer feelings toward the meditative, atmospheric Gigaton, the album Pearl Jam returned with in 2020 after a long seven-year gap. As such semi-conscious returns to form go, those albums were often more a reclamation of an idea of Pearl Jam’s early days. Some embraced the back-to-some-kind-of-basics albums Pearl Jam favored for much of this century, from the reboot of their 2006 self-titled through Backspacer and Lightning Bolt. Schisms in that audience have always meant the devout are wildly divided on what is the band’s peak era and what constitutes a “good” latter-day Pearl Jam album. Pearl Jam are long past the turning point after which their albums purely existed for the diehard fanbase. As you might imagine, not all of these things ring true. ![]() They might say they are rocking harder than you’ve heard them in years, that “ It’s a lot heavier than you’d expect.” They might say, no, really, “ No hyperbole… this is our best work.” These are certain things members of Pearl Jam, a group of aging rock stars, said in advance of their own 12th album, Dark Matter, which arrives nearly 35 years into their career. There are certain things aging rock stars say when they’re a few decades in and releasing their 12th album.
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