Pearl Jam, Out Of Its Shell

Criticized For Its Regressive Sound, The Band Moves Into The Present

October 17, 1993|By Greg Kot, Tribune Rock Critic.

Pearl Jam's new self-titled album arrives in stores Tuesday, and it's a major step into the now for a band often maligned for being stuck in the past. It's a record that establishes Pearl Jam on its own terms, rather than those of the underground rock community.

With a 6 million-selling 1991 debut, "Ten," and charisma to burn, the Seattle quintet became MTV-anointed symbols of alternative rock's newfound mainstream popularity-a cultural shift ignited by another Northwest band, Nirvana.

But whereas Nirvana retained its underground credibility even while selling 4 million records, Pearl Jam was not treated nearly so reverently. The difference was one of upbringing: Nirvana was a punk band with strong roots in the underground community, including a handful of records on the independent Sub Pop label. On the other hand, Pearl Jam's debut was released on a major label shortly after the band was formed. Nirvana's Kurt Cobain smelled a rat.

"I felt proud to be a part of the Seattle scene when we came there out of Aberdeen (Wash.)," Cobain told the Tribune in an October, 1991, interview. "But now there's a corporate tag on the Seattle scene, and I find it offensive to be lumped in with bands like Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains. I don't feel bonded with those bands in any way. They were never part of the underground."

Cobain's comments, which he later repeated in numerous interviews, dogged Pearl Jam and tainted their credibility with underground tastemakers. In the current Alternative Press magazine, which hypes itself as profiling "New music now," Pearl Jam is compared to '70s hard-rock dinosaurs Bad Company. "Sounding like FM radio in 1975 is not alternative, it's regressive," declared senior editor Jason Pettigrew.

But the new "Pearl Jam" hardly sounds regressive. In-

stead, by staking out its sonic turf so convincingly, it strongly suggests that Pearl Jam has been misperceived. Although from the home of grunge and '90s alternative rock, Pearl Jam is neither grungy nor alternative. Whereas Nirvana is part of an underground scene inspired by punk and galvanized by bands such as the Melvins, Pearl Jam is descended from an equally noble but far less fashionable Seattle tradition: a hard-rock/metal lineage that runs from Jimi Hendrix to Mother Love Bone (which included Pearl Jam members Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament).

The quintet clearly owes a debt to '70s rock, but with its second album the ties are far less conspicuous and a distinctive sound is beginning to emerge. Much more so than the soulful but blustery "Ten," the new album is a lean, contemporary piece of record-making produced by Brendan O'Brien (Red Hot Chili Peppers, Stone Temple Pilots), with a revamped rhythm section bringing a new edge to Eddie Vedder's vocals.

Vedder made "Ten" a hit, both with the Lollapalooza Nation and psychologists. In "Alive," "Once" and "Black," he sang about people who have had choices made for them. Some fought back while others collapsed into psychosis, suicide, death. Occasionally, as in "Jeremy," Vedder's passion choked on melodrama, but there was little doubt he was sincere.

A bug-eyed waif in baggy shorts, Vedder was an even more compelling force on stage with his balcony-climbing stunts and corkscrew body slams. For many fans, seeing was believing, and Pearl Jam's relentless 1992 tour rocketed the band into the Top 10.

Night after night, the singer tossed himself into a blender of bad memories about splintered families and child abuse. Like Cobain and Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan, Vedder confronted his demons in his music, and embodied the anxiety, dread and confusion he found there.

The Vedder on "Pearl Jam" also is in the grip of an unshakable, unspeakable past. "Suppose I abuse you/Just passing it on," he wails on "Go," which lurks and lurches before hitting a gallop, pierced by guitar squalls and driven by a monstrous bass line.

Even more potent is the jackhammer "Rearviewmirror," in which the passage of time brings a sense of perspective to some unexplained horror. "Took a drive today/To emancipate. . .was the beatings/made me wise. . .tried to endure/what I could not forgive."

Yet there is an attempt to make sense of the past, to find meaning in these traumas, and to heal. Amid the contemplative acoustic guitars of "Daughter," Vedder sings of reconciliation: "She holds the hand that holds her down," a theme echoed on the elegiac "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town" ("Hearts and thoughts they fade away"). The album concludes with the exorcism of "Leash"-in which the potentially sappy bumper-sticker cry, "Delight in our youth," is turned into a desperate howl-and the quiet, haunted resolve of "Indifference," which declares, "I'll keep taking punches until their will grows tired/I will stare the sun down until my eyes go blind."