Pearl Jam are coming to New Zealand in November. Photo / Danny Cinch
Pearl Jam are coming to New Zealand in November. Photo / Danny Cinch
Space scientists all agree that dark matter exists. The problem is that none of them can vouch for what it actually is, what it looks like or even how it works. They know it’s there but after that, they collectively shrug their shoulders.
After more than three decades together as a band, you can’t help but imagine the members of Pearl Jam finding themselves in a similar quandary. Pearl Jam certainly exists but what actually is it, how does it sound and how does it even work in 2024?
Dark Matter is the sound of them working it out. This is the grunge survivors’ 12th album and sees them attempting to thread the needle between their hard rockin’ roots and their mellower, lightly experimental, later work.
The result is an album of fits and starts, like a learner driver getting to grips with negotiating a manual gearbox for the first time. They’ll be charging along at speed before suddenly stalling to a juddering halt.
The band certainly comes out firing and showing intent. Dark Matter opens with the one-two punch of Scared of Fear and React, Respond. Two tracks that only get better the more volume you add. They also support guitarist Mike McCready’s claim that the album is “a lot heavier than you’d expect”.
Pearl Jam performing at the Big Day Out in Auckland on January 17, 2014. Photo / Natalie Slade
The former, which can hold its head high amongst the best songs of the band’s catalogue, rips along on a hard-hitting, head-nodding groove before exploding into an irresistibly catchy chorus. The latter strides with purpose along a stomping riff, before blazing away like an out-of-control fire on a shredding gat solo.
After that burst of red-hot activity, the band settles things down as they relax into the Americana twang of Wreckage, a mature and emotional soft-rocker about a failed relationship that builds and builds and hits you right in the feels. It’s a sure-fire stadium swayer. Won’t Tell has much the same vibe and trots along at much the same pace, only with less memorability.
These gentler songs are separated by the title track, a by-numbers rocker based around an unconvincing riff. It does have a mosh-pit-ready bounce to it, but it only truly comes alive when McCready lets rip and starts shredding.
McCready also steps up to save Waiting for Stevie, a song that recalls The Bends-era Radiohead or Urban Hymns-era The Verve, until the guitarist’s scorching fretwork pulls it into a double-time sprint. Got to Give goes Springsteen while Upper Hand somehow manages to blend shades of U2, Pink Floyd and - yes - Dinosaur Jr into its six minutes.
The gobby vocals and punkish rush of Running make it a keeper, but the twee sentimentality of Something Special sounds like something the Red Hot Chili Peppers would reject for being too on the nose. Fortunately, the band conjures up their old magic on the suitably grand and stately album-closer Setting Sun to end the record on a meditative high.
The recording of Dark Matter saw the band once again acting like a band rather than vocalist Eddie Vedder’s supporting act. They assembled in the studio for a few weeks and worked out the songs by rocking out together as a unit. It shows.
Dark Matter unashamedly throws back to their early classic albums like Ten, Vs. and Vitalogy while not at all attempting to recreate them. After 35 years, Vedder’s vocals haven’t lost any of their power, range or emotion. Nor has he lost his knack for belting out memorable chorus melodies that lodge into your brain, even after a single listen. On Dark Matter, he drops more hooks than a professional fisherman.
Pearl Jam's forthcoming album Dark Matter shows the rockers are not mellowing with age. Photo / AP
While the band only really operates in two gears - fast and not fast - they continue to find nuance and room to explore within them. Although, McCready proves to be the outlier - and MVP - of the band by being firmly stuck on turbo-mode whenever he gets the nod to start soloing no matter what’s going on around him.
The heavier songs are undoubtedly the strongest parts of the album, immediately eliciting a visceral response. The slower songs do require a little more bedding-in time but get more appealing with each spin. And no matter what, you’re never too far away from a blistering solo or anthemic chorus.
This is the most ‘Pearl Jam’ that Pearl Jam has sounded in years and I’d be happy to hear any number of the album’s songs in their live set come November. And while those space scientists may be stuck in disagreement, here Pearl Jam has done more than enough to justify Dark Matter’s existence.
