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Have you seen the MTV Unplugged gig of Pearl Jam’s on VH1 Classic recently? The set from 1992 shows Eddie Vedder leaping around while fluttering his long eyelashes with Pro Choice scrawled on his arm. Meanwhile the boys from the band are flipping their hair around like they are hippie chick hitchhikers who are trying to flag a Camaro down. Jeremy or no, those were guys who just want to have some fun.
Backspace, the ninth album for Pearl Jam, backspace to that past boyish spirit, providing us with the punkiest, shortest and tightest tunes that the band has ever produced. The entire album is finished in 37 minutes, which is a record for them. Unlike the average long term rock band, the group Pearl Jam got their start specializing in the ruminative, slow ballads and didn’t have that instinctive knack to play it loud or fast. On the early albums, tunes like “Spin the Black Circle” really were just filler that you sat through waiting for that next awesome torch song like “Daughter” or “Black.” Backspacer, however, starts out with a bang with “Gonna See My Friend,” then “Get Some” and finally “The Fixer,” a trio of nine minute gut punchers which help to get that momentum going more than any album openers for Pearl Jam ever.
For the very first time since 1998 on Yield, production is being done by Brendan O’Brien. Yield helped to defined the mature Pearl Jam in much the same way that Ten does their early frantic days. Just like Yield, Backspacer revs up the tempo while at the same time adding a texture of classic rock to the punk, along with layers of some twin guitar Thin Lizzy raunch down below. Those spinning out of control pile driving solos that appear near the end of the tune “Got Some” could be lifted from “Gimme Danger” by the Stooges, but this Seventies flavored set charges way too fast to find it feeling quaint.
The fiery heart vocals from Eddie Vedder are, as always, the main attraction. He seems quite relieved that he doesn’t have to keep singing about George Bush. Vedder loosens up just enough to share some of his guarded optimism during the new songs. The “yeah, yeah, yeah” positive choruses from “The Fixer,” evoke “Wishlist,” and that open hearted vulnerability. The love song “Just Breathe,” which should becoming the wedding song Pearl Jam standard, hearkens back to rugged acoustic ballads that were performed by Vedder on the soundtrack for Into The Wild.
The songs on the album seem to be messing with a theme loosely based on addition and recovery. “Got Some” sounds like a dealer’s invitation. “Speed of Sound” is the late night lament in the bar about it getting the best of me. The downbeat songs, however, don’t ever get too grim, despite the desperate drunken narrator from “Speed of Sound” looking for a fresh start tomorrow. Those who are fans of the chest beating and angst ridden mode of Pearl Jam may resonate metaphorically with “Amongst the Waves.” However the more that you listen to the album, the more that it sounds like a day surfing for Vedder. After toughing the Bush years out, it seems that Pearl Jam is in no mood to brood. Finally, the surf is up.
