Pearl Jam Dark Matter Album Reflections

 

Pearl Jam Dark Matter 

Dark Matter has been out long enough now that official bootlegs of Pearl Jam's 2024 tour are available at pearljam.com/tenclub. Live versions of songs off the album can be heard, dissected, and scrutinized by Pearl Jam's legions of fans, myself being one of them. Some of the songs take on new life live, like "Setting Sun," a song which I didn't really get into upon hearing it on the album. Now it's one of my favorite new PJ songs. Other songs like "Won't Tell" are just as compelling live as they are on the album. Anyway, what is there left to say about the band's most recent album that hasn't already been said? Not much. Still, a 33 year Pearl Jam fan's opinion might be interesting, especially since upon a first listen to the band's 12th studio album, I despised how it sounded. It turns out I wasn't evolved enough yet to understand it. 

For me, Pearl Jam sounds their studio best when they are produced by Brendan O'Brien. Pearl Jam really found their sound, as a band, with Vs. which was the first album O'Brien produced for them. The music sounded as if it was captured live, in a room, with all of the members playing together. That live sounding quality of the PJ albums that O'Brien produced (which includes No Code, Vitalogy, Yield, Lighting Bolt, and various remixes including Ten and Pearl Jam [the "Avocado" album]) really defines PJ's sound. The band has used other producers, such as Tchad Blake (Binaural), and while the music is still solid, the sound left something to be desired...at least to those accustomed to O'Brien's production. 

Enter Andrew Watt (Justin Bieber, Post Malone, Miley Cyrus, The Rolling Stones), fresh off a stint producing Eddie Vedder's most recent solo effort, Earthling. Apparently, Vedder was so impressed with Watt that he ushered the band together to record with Watt what became Dark Matter. Watt's pop sound sensibilities cleansed Bieber and Malone for the delicate ears of their young fans, and brought a marked difference to Vedder's punk meets classic rock sound (Stevie Wonder and Elton John make guest appearances on Earthling--amidst Vedder's Tom Petty inspired solo tracks), distinguishing it from Pearl Jam's sound. That's all well and good. Solo records are a place for experimentation with producers, unless you are U2 in the 1990s and can actually pull it off on band recordings Messing with a tried and true, and revered, sound, like that Pearl Jam established over the course of 25 years is flirting with disaster. 

Upon first listen, Dark Matter is a sonic disaster to long term PJ fans. Gone are the little nuances that make Pearl Jam such a great live experience, even on their studio albums. Finger scrapes on guitar strings and the sound of a band warming up in a shared recording space are replaced with (again) U2-like flourishes of jangly riffing that it took The Edge decades to perfect live. "Overproduced" is the term that comes to mind. Perfectly isolated guitar lines and equal sound level mixing of instrumentation produces an assembly line feel to the songs that is miles away from the fuzzy grime of No Code and the earthiness of Yield. There's nothing live about the songs. They exist in a vacuum and are placed there intentionally instead of organically. 

As I listened though, putting aside my dislike for this pristine, cleansed sound, I began to realize that the songs, as always with Pearl Jam, are so well written that they could be recorded on magnetized cassette tape of the type that one used to be able to buy at K-Mart and they would still be amazing. "Wreckage," "Won't Tell," "Got to Give," and even "Running" are the type of songs that Pearl Jam has always written, but here they sound unlike anything they've recorded before. The clean sound, which again exists in a vacuum, is not only musically relevant (something new sounding for a triple decades old band), but is thematically relevant to where they are in their careers. 

Having survived intact and remained the epitome (along with the Red Hot Chili Peppers) of DIY punks turned critical and commercial songwriting geniuses, Pearl Jam have finally ascended to the level of immortality among rock music legends. They haven't only ascended musically though. They have ascended spiritually and thematically as well. From early, broken home, "bed-wetter" themes, to themes of transcendental spiritual awakening, to incisive political activism, the band has matured into consummate professional parents and role models as well as wise old sages with wisdom to impart. They are sages who still pursue the elusive dark matter (think meaning, mystery, and mysticism) that powers their (and our) consciousness and the universe though. To ascend to such heights naturally means that one has to ascend into the metaphorical vacuum of thought and existence...and (if you are a band) sound...where such mysteries exist. 

That's what Watt's production does for the band's sound thematically on Dark Matter. The band will never forgo or abandon their roots in nature, each other, and what binds us to our shared Mother, but in order to find the answers to the question of the origins of that Mother, and therefore our own minds, feelings, aspirations, and goals one must sift through the "wreckage" we leave behind, learn the secrets we "won't tell," and ponder the things that "have to give." Focusing on the details, the guitar lines, the clarity of sound, and the cleanliness of the music, of not only their instruments, but of The Spheres, opens up a clarity of vision that helps the musician, and in turn the listener, cut through the wreckage of muddied thought and noise and hear the universe for what it is; which comes down to what you make of it. 

Pearl Jam does a lot thematically with what they have recorded for Dark Matter. By balancing the lightning fast and ascendant soloing with minimalist single note riffs, an equilibrium is found that allows for a staged propelling through the atmosphere of thought and wonder that carefully lifts the listener, instead of catapulting them, into orbit. 

When I listen to Dark Matter now, I am transported (much like I am by every Pearl Jam album), but this time I feel like I am carried instead of shocked or thrown into a state of higher consciousness. There is a time and place to be shocked, thrown, and jarred into action, but there is also a time and a place for being lifted to that higher realm. Metaphorically pondering the universe's mysterious dark matter, while being carried by the sharp, clear, and crisp notes of the album, is just the next step in the evolution of the mind as it continues to travel with Pearl Jam through this thing we share called existence.