Most of the reviews you will read about Pearl Jam They begin by highlighting that it is their 12th studio album; who have a catalog of more than 200 songs over three decades of career. It is necessary? It is necessary. Because staying relevant and consistent and publishing an album that captures the feeling of an entire career, but above all of an entire life, is not an easy task. Twelve songs that open with “Scared of Fear”; a sonic kick that takes us into the room – physically and metaphorically speaking – where the five members of the band have lived together for three weeks of recording. Andrew Watt, producer of the album and responsible for great hits on both sides of the commercial line (from Iggy Pop, Ozzy Osbourne, through Miley Cyrus and Post Malone), has known how to exploit the band’s greatest asset: its strength in direct, woven based on the complicity of five great musicians. “Let’s do full takes. Let’s go for the solos that are a little too long,” said Watt himself. Something that explains the average length of the songs and the emergence of the musicians in a broader sense, since they do not have to conform to the space reserved for them in the songs that others contributed. Themes written from scratch, from a riff, with the collaboration of each one, giving free rein to their concerns, talents and joys.
Thus “Dark Matter” It feels like a live album, with stratospheric energy and rather reduced restraint on songs like “React, Respond”, “Dark Matter” either “Running” -the shortest of all. Frantic, muscular and keeping an eye on the back while they advance frenetically. There are the echoes “Whipping” of Vitalogy either “My father’s son” of “Lightning Bolt” and again there is no turning back. The twelfth album by Eddie Vedder and company does not pretend to be “Here,” neither “vs” either “Vitalogy”although we find winks to “Yield” oa “Backspacer” also. Youthful rage gives rise to reflections on love, loss or enduring the passage of time doing something other than being. The importance of community. The legacy. An album without a clear concept, perhaps, whose lyrics are not as elaborate or calculated as before, due to being written in situ. But with uninhibited songs, which embrace more pop sounds or delicate mid-tempos where the band stands out above its contemporaries. There are the coreables “Wreckage”the crescendo of “Upper Hand”, whose atmospheric layers bring us back “Love boat captain”, “Life wasted” either “Arc.” And as always, beautiful themes like “Something special”, dedicated to the daughters of Vedder or “Setting sun”which could well be found in a compilation of rarities, somewhere between “The long road” or the soundtrack of “Into The Wild.”
Maybeand “Dark Matter” It may not be the band’s best collection of songs, but it is certainly understandable why they consider it their best work to date. It is a vital portrait, where despite the wrinkles, pain and rough hands, you continue to find that honest look, full of strength and pure joy. The work that best represents them. Brutal honesty and an impeccable sonic legacy.
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