best in years, what do you think?

Eddie and the guys finally made a good rock album, I'm diggin' this one!

are they still peddling "grunge"?

no

NEXT!

If it is anything like all of their albums since Ten, I'm sure it is great. Ten is also great but am sick of hearing it on all the lame classic rock stations thousands of times for the past 20 years. Christ, has it been 20 years since Ten?

I haven't been a big PJ-fan for a long time, this album seems to me their least pretentious one since Ten.....good songs, Eddie Vedder isn't a whiner on this one!

pkidwell said:

15 years, see my last post.


but it's not like Ten.....

abierman said:

for a second I thought you were talking about PJ harvey

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

did it say 'The new PJ Harvey album' in the thread title?????

abierman said:

No but I see "PJ" and go into an exstatic coma

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

see what I can do to you when I'm just being lazy???

It's pretty good. I love that "Marker in the Sand" song.

abierman said:

I like Ten, absolutely LOVE Yellow Ledbetter, State of Love and Trust, VS, and Vitology. However, No Code lost me and while I still listen to the early stuff on a reqular basis...I can't remember the last time I liked something new from them...EXCEPT Worldwide Suicide has got me interested.

So I should pick this one up huh? You need to sell me a bit more.

I listened to the new album today and it seems to be a bit overhyped...I pretty much agree that it may be their best in ten years but nothing was really striking about any of the songs...I've been waiting for Eddie and them to rock out again and they have, but strangely I prefer the more toned down songs on this one...go figure...

I actually really like it. 'Given to Fly' was the last Pearl Jam song to really catch my ear, but this album is full of winners. My favorite so far is probably 'Army Reserve', but I think that almost everything on the album is uniformly good. I think that after a while, a lot of reviewers give older bands a "pass" with newer work, but I don't think it's the case with this one.

I listened to it today and enjoyed it. Every song is good and for me that's all that matters.

I'm a brand new Pearl Jam fan, so now I have to go listen to all the other albums.

I already know it's going to be fun.

Here is my review: Great album! Get it now and rock out!

pkidwell said:

I also got my hands on RHCP's 'Stadium Arcadium', due out next week! What I've heard til now (it's a 2CD) is good! They seem to have gotten their grip back after the diarrhea that was 'Californication' & 'By The Way'..... Interesting that two 'old' bands make a comeback with such strong albums....
[Edited 5/3/06 14:10pm]

AMG's (www.allmusic.com) review of 'Pearl Jam':

Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Nearly 15 years after Ten, Pearl Jam finally returned to the strengths of their debut with 2006's Pearl Jam, a sharply focused set of impassioned hard rock. Gone are the arty detours (some call them affectations) that alternately cluttered and enhanced their albums from 1993's sophomore effort, Vs., all the way to 2002's Riot Act, and what's left behind is nothing but the basics: muscular, mildly meandering rock & roll, enlivened by Eddie Vedder's bracing sincerity. Pearl Jam has never sounded as hard or direct as they do here — even on Ten there was an elasticity to the music, due in large part to Jeff Ament's winding fretless bass, that kept the record from sounding like a direct hit to the gut, which Pearl Jam certainly does. Nowhere does it sound more forceful than it does in its first half, when the tightly controlled rockers "Life Wasted," "World Wide Suicide," "Comatose," "Severed Hand," and "Marker in the Sand" pile up on top of each other, giving the record a genuine feeling of urgency. That insistent quality and sense of purpose doesn't let up even as they slide into the quite beautiful, lightly psychedelic acoustic pop of "Parachutes," which is when the album begins to open up slightly. If the second half of the record does have a greater variety of tempos than the first, it's still heavy on rockers, ranging from the ironic easy swagger of "Unemployable" to the furious "Big Wave," which helps set the stage for the twin closers of "Come Back" and "Inside Job." The former is a slow-burning cousin to "Black" that finds Pearl Jam seamlessly incorporating soul into their sound, while the latter is a deliberately escalating epic that gracefully closes the album on a hopeful note — and coming after an album filled with righteous anger and frustration, it is indeed welcome. But Pearl Jam's anger on this eponymous album is not only largely invigorating, it is the opposite of the tortured introspection of their first records. Here, Vedder turns his attention to the world at large, and while he certainly rages against the state of W's union in 2006, he's hardly myopic or strident; he's alternately evocative and specific, giving this album a resonance that has been lacking in most protest rock of the 2000s. But what makes Pearl Jam such an effective record is that it can be easily enjoyed as sheer music without ever digging into Vedder's lyrics. Song for song, this is their best set since Vitalogy, and the band has never sounded so purposeful on record as they do here, nor have they ever delivered a record as consistent as this. And the thing that makes the record work exceptionally well is that Pearl Jam has embraced everything they do well, whether it's their classicist hard rock or heart-on-sleeve humanitarianism. In doing so, they seem kind of old fashioned, reaffirming that they are now thoroughly outside of the mainstream — spending well over a decade galloping away from any trace of popularity will inevitably make you an outsider — but on their own terms, Pearl Jam hasn't sounded as alive or engaging as they do here since at least Vitalogy, if not longer.

"Arty detours"? That is also known as good music! Who would Prince be without those detours? This is the main reason I ever got into Pearl Jam. Instead of trying to top their first album, they just went on to make whatever kind of music they felt like making. This new album does remind me of their early efforts but it doesn't sound like they went out and tried to force it. The more I listen to this album the more I really like it. RHCP? I gave up on them a while ago. Perhaps I'll check that out too.