Listening Post: Pearl Jam - Riot Act

Pearl Jam - Riot Act - 2002 (iTunes)

Riot Act is better than I expected it to be. By this point I've come to accept that the old Pearl Jam is gone. The visceral, biting, musically challenging artists of the first couple albums is gone. Replaced by a band that seems to know what it's core audience will accept all the while remaining slavishly beholden to the 60s Zeppelin classic rock aesthetic.
It took a while for me to become a believer who could accept that, actually. Ten and Vs are such visceral and powerful pieces of work that it was hard for me to accept the Vedderizing of this band. And, let's face it, he was still the new guy on the first album but, by Vitalogy he was muscular enough to become the driving force of all things Pearl Jam.
No Code was the simpy PJ. Yield the attempted comeback. With Binaural they were settling into their new roles as niche, experimenting pothead rockers. With Riot Act they achieve a helluva lot more.

When the 1:00 experimental piece is an a capella multi layered chant that WORKS then that's saying something.
Instead of opening with aggro power as they have so often in the past, Riot Act starts off with a growing, acoustic guitar led "Can't Keep", and it's emotive. The burner "Save You" is the PJ we know. When they get their rock ire up it's ferocious.

But there's something lying under the album and I can't help but feel it. It wasn't until I read the Wiki entry on it that I learned that this was the album that was recorded after 9 people were killed at a Pearl Jam concert. Hard for any performer to take; that 9 people died because they wanted to see you. If Pearl Jam had never recorded or made music, would those 9 have had to die that way, in the crush? If Vedder never got that demo tape......
But who could know, really? "Lost 9 friends we'll never know..." Vedder sings in Love Boat Captain. (Weirder for me that that lyric played just as I read it on the wiki and typed it here. Chilly.)
It's a darker record, sadder, hopeless, really. But dense and tortured and filled with reward for the listener.
Arc was recorded as a tribute to those 9 lives and their loss permeates this record the way 9/11 permeated everything going on in the world when this record was released. How could it NOT be the saddest Pearl Jam record?
The longing in Thumbing My Way is reminiscent of the best Page and Plant gave us in their day and to the band's credit, the song resists bombast and delicate acoustic delivery. It's just right. I want to put a blanket around Eddie or just tell him it's going to be okay, or just sit next to him and cry.

This album is, in many ways, as much a response to 9/11 as The Rising. But it's much much deeper than that. It's the most human Pearl Jam has been in a long while.
A solid effort.

Grade B
A Side: Save You, I Am Mine, Thumbing My Way
BlindSide: Arc, Ghost,
DownSide: Bu$hleaguer,