Pearl Jam Get Exploratory on the Cosmic, Curious and Familiar Dark Matter

The Seattle band’s 12th album is pensive, anthemic and emblematic of the storied 30-year chemistry shared between Eddie Vedder and Stone Gossard.Pearl Jam’s 12th album transcends the band’s generational and creative eras over nearly 34 years—it rages and riffs hard, but there are somber, pared-back, folksy meanders worthy of a long road trip within, too. A journey is, in a metaphorical way, what long-time Pearl Jam fans are on with the Seattle-born rockers.

“Wreckage,” in all its anthemic drama and wailing—near-breathless one-liners delivered like falling dominos over echoey, multi-layered guitar—is borderline-Matchbox 20 circa the late 1990s, as is the underwhelming “Won’t Tell.” There’s a haunted, overwrought quality to both songs that doesn’t quite hit as hard as the title track, which employs Vedder’s versatile vocals to rumble menacingly before unleashing furious outbursts like sonic thunder claps.

It is when the band—and Watt—evoke Pearl Jam’s stunning capacity to rage at the injustices of the world, invoking personal grievances in equal measure, thatis at its best , while less on-brand tracks like “Upper Hand,” which enters on a synthesizer intro, embrace novelty with mixed results. It’s fine, it’s O.K., but it feels like frills and bows on a well-tailored suit: needless flounce.

For anyone over 30, the bygone era Pearl Jam is inextricably entwined with endures in the melancholic, angst-soaked singles from album, as “Alive,” “Even Flow” and “Jeremy” are justifiably grunge anthems. Those early moments, some derived from demos that guitarist Stone Gossard had written for his previous band Mother Love Bone, were a combination of truthful, personal stories and dramatic fictional flourishes all anchored by Vedder’s unique, grizzly-edged baritone.

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