Pearl Jam

Binaural

Pearl Jam's best yet.

Review Score:

(10/10)
Pearl Jam, heroes of a generation, champions of a 70's-oriented guitar sound, harbingers of Neil Young's message that "rock and roll will never die," have outdone themselves with Binaural. The album takes the oft-diverse songcraft of all the band members and cooks up a dark, spacey masterpiece in the process. In some songs, the guitars are cranked up to 11---in others, they're barely a whisper. Featuring Soundgarden's Matt Cameron on drums, the band seems to have found a new lease on life after the slow, reflective album that was 1998's Yield. Some songs are still slow, and most are reflective, but Pearl Jam show that they have not forgotten how to rock and rock well.

PJ explore Who-like arena-rock bombast ("Breakerfall"), Pink Floyd-like space-guitar opuses ("Nothing As It Seems"), and fast punk rock numbers ("Gods' Dice") with ease. Letting go of a long gone loved one is explored on the quietly powerful "Light Years," while "Grievance" seethes with fury at the World Trade Organization. Guitarist Stone Gossard contributes a pair of dark, haunting numbers---the acoustic-based "Of The Girl" tells of heroin addiction while "Rival" is a chilling account of the then-recent tragedy at Columbine High School. "Parting Ways" may be PJ's best album closer yet, a poignant tale of unaddressable romantic dischord. There's a couple of missteps that keep this from being a perfect album; most notably, Matt Cameron's unbearable musical composition on "Evacuation" and the odd "Sleight of Hand". But then you hear something like "Insignificance," the album's centerpiece and best track, and listen to it rage and seethe a venemous diatribe against the government for bombing indefensible countries, and it puts a smile on your face and a hope for rock and roll in your heart. Pearl Jam's sixth is a ten.

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