Unfiltered Smoke

an attempted review by Isaac Thompson

“…Speaking as a child of the 90’s” – Vedder

Before I dive into my review, I feel I should include a disclaimer: I am a die-hard Pearl Jam fan. They are my #1, all time favourite band. Every note of every Pearl Jam album is sacred to me and therefore this review will be as biased as an Aaron Spelling casting call. I love Pearl Jam and I love this album. So prepare yourself for the Seattle Stroke-job of the century.

Another side note: Again, I am extremely biased on the subject, but I’ve noticed that most reviewers are routinely unfair to Pearl Jam, brushing the band off as has-beens. It’s my estimation that those reviewers don’t know what the hell they’re talking about. It can be frustrating seeing someone slag your favourite band when they obviously don’t know the music nearly as well as you do. How can they dismiss something they know so little about? It’s kind of like how people who don’t listen to punk music say it all sounds the same. If you are a punk fan, I don’t need to tell you that all punk music does not sound the same and those people don’t know what they’re talking about. Love for a band is a personal thing and you can’t find it in a press kit. When reviewers make asinine comments about Pearl Jam, such as “they’re just repeating themselves.” I shake my head. Are they listening to the same band I am? They certainly aren’t listening as closely as me and the rest of Pearl Jam’s loyal cult. I feel it’s my duty as a fan to write a review for the album that doesn’t just make lame jabs at Eddie Vedder’s earnestness (as if it were a bad thing) or blame them for spawning every crappy band that’s dominated rock radio since (Creed, Nickelback, Theory of a Dead Man, Default, Staind, Three Doors Down, etc..). That’s like hating Steven Spielberg because of his influence on Michael Bay. Just because someone decides to rip off the obvious, superficially commercial elements of your art minus the soul doesn’t mean it’s your fault! And none of the johnny-come-lately-wannabes who are still trying to recreate Pearl Jam’s Ten can ever stop Pearl Jam from being awesome.

You wish you rocked as hard as this guy.

That being said, the reviews for Backspacer have been almost universally positive. And with good reason, the record kicks ass. The only review I’ve read for the album that I’d consider negative was on Pitchfork.com. They tore Backspacer a new one. This was most likely because Pearl Jam are not an ironic, hipster indie band consisting of like 15 skinny pretty boys from Montreal… I mean, seriously. Am I the only one who is bored with that shit? I’ve been sick of this ‘above it all’, ironically-moustachioed hipster fad since day one. I will be celebrating heavily when sincerity and passion are regarded as positive things in rock music. (suck it, Pitchfork!)

The reasons Pearl Jam are my favourite band are too numerous to mention, but here’s a short rundown of my love affair: I discovered them during the Vitalogy era when I was knee high to one of those bugs that hops around in the grass. The closest thing I’ve had to a religious experience was seeing Pearl Jam live during the Riot Act tour. A friend who was working behind the scenes at that show nabbed Mike McCready’s guitar pick for me. I cherish it like the holy grail. I’ve spent countless hours as a child, teenager and adult worshiping at the Alter of Pearl.

Me offering my most sincere form of flattery to Eddie Vedder. (photo by the rockin' Tiffany Naugler)

The band has my loyalty because they’ve earned it. They’ve never let me down, I’ve never felt like they were phoning it in, and they always try something different. They are legendary for going against the grain (not shooting videos, touring sans ticket-master, accepting awards with a simple “This is meaningless”, etc.) even though when they first came out they were accused (unfairly, IMHO) of being Nirvana bandwagon-jumpers.

Backspacer continues Pearl Jam’s tradition of expanding their sound while staying true to what fans love about them. Everything is in place. Eddie’s vocals sound as unhinged as ever, yet more controlled. Matt Cameron is a goddamn force of nature on the drums. Jeff Ament’s bass lines are much more traditional sounding and it’s interesting to hear. The buzz-saw guitar attack provided by Stone Gossard and Mike McCready is still present, as are the tender ballads. But this time they’ve made good on a lot of influences they’ve only touched on in the past. There are more nods to classic punk rock on this one than any of their previous albums. They even touch on 80’s new wave with some of the tracks, and for once I have to agree with the reviewers’ consensus and say this is the most fun Pearl Jam album of all time.

The Artwork to the album is fantastic, although if you’ve been following the band all these years you know that’s par for the course. Backspacer’s artwork was done by Tom Tomorrow who draws the comic strip “The Modern World”. He does a great job and his cartoonish style is a visual cue for the type of sounds you’ll hear when you press play.

"Why don't you come up here and say that 'Last Kiss' sucks?"

“When something’s lost, I wanna fight to get it back again” – Vedder

Pearl Jam is a band who knows how to begin an album. With the exception of No Code, all of their albums begin with high energy, foot stomping, barn burners and Backspacer follows suit. The one, two, three punch of “Gonna See My Friend”, “Got Some”, and “the Fixer” grabbed me right away. They’re loud, fast and catchy tunes, but less in the aggressive style of Black Flag and more the adolescent jubilation of the Ramones. In fact, I declare”The Fixer” (the lead single off of the album) Pearl Jam’s catchiest lead single since Their first single, “Alive” back in 1991. ”The Fixer” is the one song I can’t get enough of at the moment, however I expect that to happen at one point or another with every track.

Another one of the album’s standout tracks is “Just Breathe”. It’s beautiful guitar-line and Vedder’s amazing vocals remind me of some of the early Pearl Jam ballads that sent millions of bic lighters waving gracefully in the air 18 years ago.  Eddie Vedder has told reporters it is the closest thing to a love song the band has ever recorded. I would argue they have written love songs, but most of them are about the love of getting into a car and just driving. This one flirts with typical love song territory while keeping equal portions of pessimism mixed in with the optimism. That’s one of the things I adore about the band; they aren’t the type to sugar coat things, but they aren’t wallowers either. They take the good they take the bad and there we have….the facts of life. Life isn’t a bowl of roses, often it sucks, it’s ugly and indifferent, but life isn’t all misery and pain as a lot of hard rock bands would have you believe. In truth it’s a little of both, and Pearl Jam has always been a band that understood that.

“Johnny Guitar” makes great use of the wah-wah pedal and the chorus makes me involuntarily pump my fist in the air (always a good sign). “Supersonic” is a fun tight pop-rock song in the vein of “Mankind” off of Pearl Jam’s 4th album No Code. It’s also got a touch of Born in the USA era Springsteen and includes the fantastic line “I’m not the paper, I’m more like the fold. Cut the crease and put the shit in the whole.”  The album’s closer ”The End” is another beautifully sparse ballad that rounds out the album nicely. At a breakneck 39 minutes, the album hardly ever stops to catch its breath and when the ballads roll around they really stand out.

This might not matter as much to casual fans, but this album marks the return of Brendan O’brian who produced all of Pearl Jam’s early albums and just about every other good 90’s hard rock album you can name. His work speaks for itself, His records always sound great. Go check your record collection, you’d be surprised how many amazing albums he is behind. He also plays a mean surf guitar.

I feel I’m glossing over the specifics of the album, probably because I am. Therein lies the problem with reviewing records, it’s not like watching a movie, where one time through you more or less get the jist of it. With a record you need to live and breathe it for months to truly appreciate it. I know I like this album a lot, I know it’ll never have the same effect on me that Ten, Vs, and Vitalogy had. That’s just impossible. But I don’t feel I know the album well enough yet to really get into the specifics. I’ve only listened to it 5 times, which some might say is enough to write a review, but I don’t think I’ll truly know how I feel about the record until, say, a year from now. That’s one of the joys of a band like Pearl Jam. There are references, inside stories, secret codes and hidden meanings in everything they touch.  It can keep a fan busy trying to decipher it all for years. Hell, they’ve kept me busy with it for almost two decades now.

Although it’s still growing on me, I’m still learning its idiosyncrasies, I know this is a great album. It’s a fun burst of high energy pop rock, and the band seems to be letting loose like never before. I give Backspacerthe same rating I give Pearl Jam’s last 8 albums: 10 out of 10, two thumbs up, 100%! I love this band, I wont even try and find fault in them, I’ll leave that up to Rollingstone, Blender, Spin and of course, Pitchfork.