Pearl Jam Rocking In a Happy Place

Without record label Pearl Jam released their ninth album "Backspacer". Much has been written about the Target deal in the US but what about the music? Are people still interested in the ninth album by these middle aged rockers? And more importantly can they deliver anything interesting?

Pearl Jam - Backspacer (Ronald Says 8 out of 10)

On their previous self titled album with the avacado the band seemed to have rediscovered themselves. Their songs were rocking harder than ever with a very eager and sometimes angry Vedder singing his lungs out. Even after his beautiful and quiet soundtrack "Into the Wild" they have continued down this road. Only this time the anger is gone. The new album has 11 songs in over just 36 minutes with half of them not even clocking 3 minutes. The result is a compact positive rock album with plenty to enjoy.

The first two songs illustrate this perfectly. Solid uptempo rock songs with Vedder's raspy voice. The band's first single "The Fixer" took me some time to get into but it's a poppy tune which has a nice groove to it. Then they slow down in the middle part of the album. "Just Breathe" is a beautiful ballad that could have come right of the forementioned soundtrack album followed by "Amongs The Waves" and "Unthought Known" in the familiar Pearl Jam style. But then it's time to shift gear again with the rock tune "Supersonic".

Twenty years of rock stardom have the beast of indolence lurking around. Bands like Pearl Jam have reached all there is in the music scene and don't need to make records for a living. Instead they can record anything they like whenever they like at the risk of people calling them yesterday's news. But instead of trying to prove themselves by diving into forced experiments or trying to copy their biggest successes they decided to do what they do best: writing catchy rock songs. And they're damned good at it since besides frontman Vedder they have a badd ass rythm section in drummer Matt Cameron, bass player Jeff Ament and guitar player Stone Gossard. Together with lead guitarist Mike McReady they can be considered a dream team that will make every rock song sound good.

The album closes in style with the accoustic ballad "The End" that ends the album abruptly with the mysterious words "the end/comes near/I'm here/but not much longer". One can only guess what Vedder meant by that but if the band can continue to make albums like this after twenty years let's hope they will stick around.
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Muse Shooting For The Stars And Miss

Everything about Muse has grown big over the past years: their sound grew bigger, their shows grew bigger and their fanbase got bigger. So where would it end? They didn't stop at their last album but tried to make their latest one the biggest of all.

Muse - The Resistance (Ronald Says 6 out of 10)
When I saw their last tour I was wondering where they would go next. Could they go even bigger as they hinted themselves? This seemed impossible. I thought it would be great if the next step would actually be back to basics again. But they shot for bigger instead.

The album opener "Uprising" isn't bad all. A typical Muse song with some doctor Who sounds. They have been digging into conspiracy theories a lot and this album is all about that and can be considered a concept album. This also reflects in the sometimes paranoia lyrics. Not really fancy lyrics but when you believe in those conspiracies you want to make sure the message gets across.

But then in song number two "Resistance" the band goes into hyperdrive and musical mode. The lyrics get more cheesy and the music sounds almost laughable at some points. It's all buffed up with strings and keys and they must really have thought that bigger is better. At ludicrous hyperspeed they fly into "United States of Eurasia" which has Queen written all over it. All subtlety is lost and they completely fly out of control with this Bohemian Rhapsody meets Cats.

And so it goes on this crazy space ship. "MK Ultra" is a more down to earth Muse tune and can please me more. Then the ship heads into a symphony "Exogenesis" in three parts. It's a both admirable and impressive part of the album and singer Matthew Bellamy shows once again that he's a gifted piano player and composer. Still it feels lightly out of place and too much. Like the whole album it's going in all directions and seems to be all over the place.

Muse was groing towards this all along and it seems the band feel they have finally climaxed. But it seems they have either climaxed prematurely or have overdone themselves. In this case bigger is not better and one can only hope that next time they do it right or may consider going small again.
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New Alice in Chains Video "Check My Brain"

Alice in Chain's first album "Black Gives Way To Blue" since singer Layne Staley's death will be released end of this month and they released a first single "A Looking in View" a few months ago. Now there's the second single "Check My Brain". A heavy rocker in their familiar style. The video is dark with psychedelic colours showing the band playing against city scene backgrounds. Good song!

Alice in Chains |MTV Music

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