New spontaneity: With “Dark Matter”, the grunge veterans Pearl Jam present a confident album recorded at record speed.
A new Pearl Jam album is still an event. The grunge veterans no longer sell as many records as they did in their heyday, but their fan base is huge - and the following still applies: the music is top secret until it is released. So if you want to write about it, you first have to go to the cinema. So-called pre-listening dates were scheduled across Germany on Tuesday for the album “Dark Matter”, which is released today, including at the “Cinemaxx” on the Isartor. Fans sat next to journalists and were amazed at the quiet, tinny mono sound that emanated from the speakers. Possibly to spoil the sound soup for any fellow musicians.
Guitarist Mike McCready: “Our producer kicked our asses”
Does “Dark Matter” justify the Bohei? In any case, it seems as if the men around singer Eddie Vedder have benefited from their new working method. According to the press release, they only hopped into Rick Rubin's Shangri-La studios for three weeks for their twelfth studio record - that's incredibly short for Pearl Jam, the last LP "Gigaton" took three years. Andrew Watt looked after them this time - the man who has recently been producing everything that isn't on the top of his head: like the Rolling Stones, Iggy Pop, Miley Cyrus. Watt “kicked their asses,” guitarist Mike McCready recently said. So: encouraged to work more concisely.
The result actually sounds refreshingly spontaneous. “Scared of Fear”, the opening track, moves along at a decent pace, “Respond, react” even picks up the pace. The title track “Dark Matter,” which has already been released as a single, is a sinister hard rocker – and the only really dark song here. “Running,” on the other hand, shows itself to be a raucous little punk rocker that makes up for the ballad “Won't Tell,” which wants to be played a little too forcefully on the radio. “Upper Hand”, on the other hand, shows that this band is capable of great things even with quiet songs. The title develops a dramatic pull. Also thanks to Vedder's voice, which has lost none of its power - his lyrics are, as always, close to kitsch, slogans for perseverance and comfort. And in the case of the country rocker “Something special”, a vow of love to his wife and daughter. Because of “dark matter”: the record sounds more like hot milk with honey.
One song sounds like Joan Jett, one like Tom Petty, one even sounds like Bruce Springsteen
One can interpret it as the calmness of age that Pearl Jam are revealing their influences more than ever before. One riff is reminiscent of Joan Jett (“Dark Matter”), another of Big Star (“Scared of Fear”). And the guitar motif of “Wreckage” is so reminiscent of Tom Petty that the audience in the cinema chants “Learning to fly” with amusement. “Got to give,” on the other hand, wouldn’t have seemed out of place on an old Bruce Springsteen LP. They really reach their audience from everywhere.
All of this adds up to something that Eddie Vedder says: "Without exaggeration - I think this is our best work." We say: he exaggerates a bit. It doesn't live up to the greatness of the '90s, but "Dark Matter" is their best album in a long time.