Pearl Jam - Dark Matter-Deluxe Edition-2024-MOD

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Name .:. Pearl Jam - Dark Matter

Genre : Rock
Source : CDDA
Type .:. Album

Artist : Pearl Jam
Label : Republic (Universal Music)
Titel : Dark Matter

Tracks : 11
Playtime : 48:24
Size : 95,06 MB

Encoder : VBRNEW - LAME3.100 - V0
Quality : VBR kbps / 44.1kHz / Joint-Stereo
Bitrate : avg. 273kbps

[ Tracklist ]

01.Scared Of Fear 04:25
02.React, Respond 03:31
03.Wreckage 05:01
04.Dark Matter 03:32
05.Won’t Tell 03:28
06.Upper Hand 05:57
07.Waiting For Stevie 05:41
08.Running 02:19
09.Something Special 04:07
10.Got To Give 04:37
11.Setting Sun 05:46

Total 48:24 Min

Rock purist first, savvy marketeer last, Eddie
Vedder has always seemed like he would rather eat
his favourite surfboard than issue a ‘singer says
new album is great!’ style proclamation about Pearl
Jam. That’s precisely what made his uncharacteristic
words at a playback for this record so intriguing.
“No hyperbole,” he said, “I think this is our best
work.”

Given his band has delivered classics like Ten and
(insert your own preference here, 10 Club members),
it was a bold assertion. Clearly, Eddie feels they
have an ace up their sleeve this time. About that.
While the title of Pearl Jam’s 12th album refers to
the hypothetical cosmic webbing holding the universe
together, the ‘Dark Matter’ binding proceedings here
is Andrew Watt. Known first for producing pop stars
like Miley Cyrus and Dua Lipa, he’s increasingly
been spearheading rejuvenative records for Ozzy
Osbourne, Iggy Pop and The Rolling Stones. Having
already worked on Eddie’s 2022 solo outing
Earthling, he now tackles his ultimate goal:
producing his favourite band.

At a taut 11 tracks, Dark Matter conspires to distil
32 years of Pearl Jam doing the sonic evolution into
one totalising whole. It nails the brief. A
boisterous slice of their Avocado era can be heard
in the crunchy power chords of brilliant opener
Scared Of Fear, while React, Respond captures
Eddie’s therapeutic mantra keeping pace with a zig-
zagging groove a la their early years.

Other adrenalised entries abound – Running summons
the spirit of Backspacer’s giddiest moments – but,
crucially, there is much more besides. Throughout,
the songcraft keeps you guessing. Just when you
think you have the mid-paced gem Upper Hand sussed,
it starts accelerating out of nowhere. Best of all,
and destined to become a fan-favourite, Wreckage is
a gorgeous Tom Petty-esque entry so instantly
anthemic you’re unlikely to clock that it floats
through eight verses before the chorus kicks in.
That’s all before Eddie projects the ‘holding on’
bridge so hard that his voice is presumably still
reverberating around the studio walls.

Perhaps best understood as a collection of songs
detailing innocence lost and wisdom gained, Dark
Matter moves deftly between moods, whether chewing
on indignant rage on the title-track (not to mention
Matt Cameron drumming his arms off), to calling for
reconciliation on Got To Give. The range of subjects
is staggering. Waiting For Stevie tells the story of
a young woman finding refuge in live music over a
bright, slinking guitar line while Won’t Tell… Well,
that one will keep you busy wringing your
interpretation from its spectral lyrics.

The album’s curveball is Something Special.
Presumably called so because a certain title had
already been cherry-picked back in 1993, it’s a
dedication to Eddie’s daughters. To hear him in
full-blown protective, fearful, boyfriend-warning
dad-mode is by turns funny and sweet. ‘We did the
best… the best we could,’ he reflects on the
Beatles-y jangle. In their early years, Pearl Jam’s
earnest nature was often used – unfairly – to
lampoon them. Yet their unflinching sentimentality
remains their greatest asset. It would be an
unfeeling soul indeed not to be moved by the sound
of a man who started his career mourning the father
he never really knew singing, now, as the dad who
has given everything.

Dark Matter is many things. It’s thrilling. It’s
moving. It’s surprising. It’s a band still operating
at the peaks of their powers. ‘Let us not fade,’
repeats Eddie at the end of elegiac closer Setting
Sun. There seems little risk of that. Pearl Jam said
it took three weeks to record Dark Matter. In truth,
it’s the kind of record that takes a lifetime to
make.

https://pearljam.com