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Pearl Jam - Backspacer (2009)

Nagyon kíváncsi voltam, hogy a kezdetek óta ösztönösen dolgozó Pearl Jam-mel mihez fog tudni kezdeni Brendan O'Brien producer-legenda a Backspacer-en! (A Vs. - 1993, Vitalogy - 1994, No Code - 1996, Yield - 1998 készült korábban vele.) A 2006-os, egyszerűen csak Pearl Jam címmel megjelent album óta (Eddie Vedder Into The Wild szólóján kívül) nem adtak ki stúdió dalokat, turnézni viszont még mindig nagyon tudnak! Brendan O'Brien némileg lenyugtatta a folyamatosan feltörni készülő Pearl Jam-vulkánokat, és ezzel szerintem nagyon jót tett a csapatnak!

Úgy tűnik nekem, hogy Brendan O'Brien-nek sikerült meggyőzni a csapatot arról, hogy a stúdióban koncertráljanak a dalokra, majd élőben jammelnek annyit, amennyit akarnak! Jó régen jelent már meg olyan Pearl Jam album, ahol ennyire össze lennének szedve! Ezzel együtt Brendan O'Brien-nek a nagy érdeme az is, hogy nem akarta kiölni belőlük azt az ösztönös hangot, amivel sikeresek tudnak lenni! Az itt hallható 36 és fél perc őszinte, gondolkodó, a zenélés örömét megtartó dalokkal van tele! Zenei költeményekkel... azzal a különös Pearl Jam-varázslattal, ami teljesen egyedi a kortárs rockban!

A varázsuk lényege az, hogy például Eddie Vedder most 44 évesen sem akar felnőni, egyszerűen és hitelesen adja a huszonéves egyetemista srácot, annak minden örömével és gondjával! Tudom, hogy a dolog non-szensz - értelmetlenség, képtelenség, ostobaság -, de Eddie Vedder-nek akkor is sikerül! Azon a country-ízű, elcsukló, kissé fa énekhangon tudja - ugyanabban a ruhában - elővezetni az új dalait, mint ahogy 18 éve, 1991-ben, 26 évesen, a Ten idejében tette...

Persze ezek már sokkal érettebbek, csiszoltabbak, tisztábbak, mint a régi dalaik voltak, az ösztönök sem úgy működnek, mint egykor, de attól még meg tudták őrizni a lényeget: a rockot azért találták ki a zenészek, hogy örömet okozzanak maguknak! A Backspacer-en pedig senki semmiben nem erőlködik! A zenekar minden tagja régen rájött, hogy mire képes a stúdióban! A dalok ennek megfelelően lettek megírva, nincs itt semmi paraszt-vakítás! Össze-jammeltek egy rakás Pearl Jam-es ötletet, Brendan O'Brien-nel képesek voltak ezeket közérthetőbb formába önteni, majd koncentráltan feljátszani! Azt hiszem, hogy most hitelesebbek lettek, mint valaha voltak! Igazán érdekes dalokat és lemezt szültek, amivel a kilencvenes évekbe képesek repítenek minket! Ennél többet nem lehet várni tőlük, de még mindig ők a legjobbak a saját múltjuk megidézésében!

10/9

Kiadó:
Saját kiadás (US), Universal Music Group (nemzetközi)
Honlap:
www.pearljam.com
myspace.com/tenclub

A Rolling Stone a következőket írta:

Pearl Jam - Backspacer

4/5

Have you caught that Pearl Jam MTV Unplugged gig on VH1 Classic lately? The 1992 set has Eddie Vedder jumping around, fluttering his rock-star eyelashes, scrawling the words "PRO CHOICE" on his arm, as the boys in the band flip their hair like hippie-chick hitchhikers trying to flag down a Camaro. "Jeremy" or no "Jeremy," these were guys who wanted to have fun.

Backspacer, Pearl Jam's ninth album, backspaces to that boyish spirit, with the shortest, tightest, punkiest tunes they've ever banged out. The whole album is done and dusted in 37 minutes, a record for these guys. Unlike your average long-running rock band, Pearl Jam started off specializing in slow, ruminative, rope-a-dope ballads and didn't have any instinctive knack for playing it fast or loud. On their early records, punk nuggets like "Spin the Black Circle" were just filler, and you sat through them because you were waiting for the next awesomely slack-jawed torch song á la "Black" or "Daughter." But Backspacer comes out swinging with "Gonna See My Friend," "Got Some" and "The Fixer" — a nine-minute trio of gut-punchers that get the momentum rushing like no other Pearl Jam album openers ever.

Brendan O'Brien is producing the band for the first time since Yield, the 1998 gem that defines the parameters of the mature Pearl Jam the way Ten defines their frantic early days. Like Yield, this revs the tempo while adding classic-rock texture to the punk rush, with layers of Thin Lizzy twin-guitar raunch going on down below. The pile-driving solos that spin out of control at the end of "Got Some" could be nicked from the Stooges in "Gimme Danger" — but the Seventies-flavored cowbell-boogie charges ahead way too fast for anything to feel quaint.

Eddie Vedder's heart-on-fire vocals are the main attraction, as always. He seems relieved not to have to go on singing about George Bush, and he loosens up enough to share his guarded optimism in the new songs. There's a definite positivity to the "yeah, yeah, yeah" choruses that jump out of "The Fixer," which evoke the old openhearted vulnerability of "Wishlist." "If something's old, I wanna put a bit of shine on it," Vedder growls. "When something's gone, I wanna fight to get it back again." And the rugged acoustic ballads Vedder did on the Into the Wild soundtrack carry over into "Just Breathe," a love song that deserves to become Pearl Jam's wedding-song standard.

The songs seem to mess around with a loose theme of addiction and recovery. "Got Some" (with Vedder chanting, "Got some if you need it") could be a dealer's invitation, while "Speed of Sound" is the flip side, a late-night barroom lament from a guy who mourns that "Every time I get me some/It gets the best of me." But the downbeat songs on Backspacer don't get too grim — even the desperate drunk who narrates "Speed of Sound" ends up looking forward to a chance to start fresh tomorrow. Fans of Pearl Jam's chest-beating angst mode might look for some metaphorical resonance in "Amongst the Waves." Yet the more you listen, the more it just sounds like Vedder's spending a nice day surfing. After toughing out the Bush years, Pearl Jam aren't in the mood for brooding; at long last, surf's up.

Egy személyesebb hangvételű, kiváló értékelés:

I can never really tell, right when the album comes out. My over excitement about hearing new Pearl Jam material prevents me from being an entirely unbiased reviewer of the material. But then again, I certainly felt something for this most recent offering that I hadn't felt for any of the past three albums. Binaural had fantastic songs, but lacked flow. Riot Act had great flow, but isn't the best in terms of quality songs. Avocado was a great return to their punk roots, but still seemed a few steps short of greatness.

Enter Backspacer. Gone is the Bush dynasty and with it Ed Ved's political rants- some of which were turned into sub-par PJ songs (see: "Bushleaguer"). As anyone who has heard the first single, "The Fixer," has noticed, it almost sounds as if Eddie is happy. Anyone who has followed Pearl Jam throughout their career knows that most of PJ's songs are either sad or angry; happy is not an adjective usually associated with this band, and it's weird and almost unnerving - but in a good way.

The album explodes in a way we haven't seen since Ten and Vitalogy. (PJ buffs may argue that Binaural had three hard rockers to open, but I will respectfully counter that the relative uselessness of Evacuation as a song renders that album's explosiveness a moot point.) First we have "Wanna See My Friend," (or as Yonah calls it "Wanna Punch My Friend in the Face," due to it's hard-rocking nature, and how it makes both of us want to run around screaming and hitting things - in a good way. Eddie's vocals are howling in a way that recalls songs like Deep, Rats, and Leash, and the overall speed and raunchiness of the song makes it a dream as an album opener. We're lead directly into "Got Some," Eddie's stab at post-modern self referential bullshit, as he croons that we, the listeners, just want to hear a rock song - so here's a rock song. The lyrics may leave what to be desired, but the song punches right on through leaving the listener salivating for more, which we get with "The Fixer." Now, many PJ fans have derided this song as sell-out, radio-friendly, bullshit that has no purpose on a Pearl Jam album; from the perfectly distorted intro, all the way through to the sing-along chorus. But then again, most of these fans haven't seen the song live yet. While I don't particularly love the studio version, the song takes on an entirely new identity in concert. The distortion is more grungy, the piano licks in the chorus more pronounced, and the sing-alongs just so damn awesome. So take my word for it, the song straight up rocks.

Which takes us to "Johnny Guitar," a song written from the perspective of a young music fan who falls in love with a model on an album cover. Both lyrically and musically, the song ventures into areas that the band hasn't touched before. The story is weird, but probably biographical. The music sounds like something off an early Stooges album, and Eddie seems to be doing his best to sound like Iggy Pop. It's not classic Pearl Jam, but it's entertaining and innovative, and therefore awesome. Just Breathe is a continuation of "Tuolumne" from the Into the Wild soundtrack, and takes the album's pace down a few steps as Eddie sings about life, love, and loss.

At this point, the album changes from just being a great hard rock album, to a fantastically constructed masterpiece with beautifully composed songs. "Amongst the Waves" quickly establishes itself as the catchiest song on the album, and one of the most beautiful. Brendan O'Brien's influence can clearly be seen in the music, while the guitars remain sparse until the chorus- letting bass, drums, and organ dominate the verses. The opening lyrics set the stage for the poetry that marks the rest of the album:
What used to be a house of cards
Has turned into a reservoir
Save the tears that were waterfalling
Let's go swim tonight, darling.
The song explodes into an immensely catchy chorus, with both Mike and Stone rocking out hard- letting the song crescendo beautifully and perfectly. After dropping back into another verse and chorus, Mike lets loose and entertains us with a perfectly written solo (yes, that's right - Brendan made Mike actually write out the solo to that song, as opposed to letting him wing it like he normal does) which continues into the outro choruses, during which we see not one, but two vocal-inflection brilliances on Ed's part.

"Unthought Known," follows, with a musical buildup that mimics a lyrical one. We open with one guitar and a lone person's thoughts. That sound is expanded with the addition of guitar and organ, as the lyrics move from being inside one's head, to walking along a road. Another guitar joins in the music, as another character enters the song - the lover or partner. Now the love moves from the road up into the air, as the keys pound more heavily. Suddenly, Matt's drumming takes a turn, as the story takes off into the sky, past the moon. Now, the song has reached it peak, and as there's no higher for either the song or the lyrics to ascend, the music continues jamming, while Eddie croons "Nothing left," over and over again. The song ends with another quick buildup, but this time the moon, the path, the dreams are all combined in one verse, where Eddie joins everything together. As for the poetic analysis of that, I'll leave it up to each listener to determine for themselves.

"Supersonic" stole the riff from "Mankind," but no one cares. Not only does the song rock my socks off, but the slow jam interlude that Stone breaks out at 1:20 is so freaking good that I'm nervous I may wear the grooves off the record for that part. "Speed of Sound" seems to be one of those songs that fans will never agree on. I love it, but many seem to hate it. The atonal intro melody just makes the beautiful vocal lines that much more gorgeous, and the full band version is a huge improvement from Ed's solo version.

The final two songs, are probably some of the most beautiful and haunting poetry that Ed has ever written. "Force of Nature" starts off like a standard rock song, with a trademark Matt backbeat, and a groovy lead guitar intro (which I'm guessing is Stone, but have no way of knowing). The story begins about from the perspective of a woman who is described as a "force of nature," who is "letting go," and quickly shifts to a "common man" who seems to be desperately trying to save his love. The first chorus uses some of the most vivid imagery I've seen from Ed yet:
One man stands the edge of the ocean
A beacon on dry land
Eyes above the horizon
In the dark before the dawn
The story continues using the analogy of a hurricane to describe the storm that is his love to this woman can't seem to hold on anymore. He's waiting for her to come back from something. Did she leave him? Did she lose her mind? Did she die? It's unclear from the lyrics, as we're only privy to Ed's description of this man's tragic loss of his love.
Suddenly, the song shifts to the first person, and we hear Eddie's editorial on the situation:
Makes me ache
Makes me shake
Is it so wrong to think
Love can keep us safe?
While I've only scratched the surface of the poetry of the song, it's the music that truly carries the message through. The song is perfectly structured, and has one of the most beautiful choruses I've ever heard.

Which brings us to "The End." From the first time I heard it, bootlegged from the Eddie solo shows, it was clear that Eddie was back in full form. In an almost "Off He Goes" style of a ballad, this time it seems that this is a love song not to a lover, but to us - the fans. While this is probably not PJ's final album, it seems that the end may be coming.
What were all those dreams we shared those many years ago...I'm just a human being...I just want to hold on and know I'm worth your love.
This is entirely my own opinion, but I would like to think that this is Eddie's gift to his fans, a song written for them, about them. He seems unsure about the future, but if this is it, then it's certainly been a fantastic ride.
Give me something to echo in my unknown future, you see, my dear, the end, comes near, I'm here, but not much longer.

 (Forrás: troubledsoulsunite.blogspot.com)

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