reviews

Matt Despres - Riot Act Review

PEARL JAM
Riot Act
Sony/Epic Records

If you came looking for 1992, you’ve found the wrong album.

“They’re going to crucify you for staying the same. If you change, they’re going to crucify you for changing. But staying the same is boring. And change is interesting. So of the two options, I’d rather be crucified for changing.”

Joni Mitchell said it in 1979, though it seems now she was speaking not of herself but prophesizing the future of another band, the only one, in fact, to make it out of the so-called grunge movement alive. With little input from its five members, Pearl Jam found itself in the pole position of the early 90’s, alarmed that one album and a video had led to its actively being painted with one broad stroke after another. In alarming response, they ran far and fast. And sure, they stumbled along the way, but each hiccup in the road snapped the tradition set before it and opened new doors. They weren’t milking grunge, they weren’t waxing alternative – instead, they were experimenting in a medium most of us have seem to have forgotten: music. Doesn’t anybody remember music?

“Riot Act,” the band’s seventh studio album, is not a revolution as the title suggests. More succinctly, it’s an evolution – at times. More realized than 2000’s Binaural, the album is encoded with self-reference and an interest in exploration that casts an energetic eye on the future.

The first hint of that is in the album’s first track, “Can’t Keep.” It’s rhythm built from the ukelele (yes, ukelele) on up, it recieves a lush, full band treatment here, the propulsive backbeat of drummer Matt Cameron breaking like a wave at every bridge. Its free-ranging arc is artfully hemmed in by one of the most enthusiastic melodies singer Ed Vedder has penned in years.

“Save You” follows with a pounding air of indignation – the crunching rocker is controlled from below by bassist Jeff Ament, clearing the way for the devastatingly pointed lyrics that load the song’s emotional muscle. Vedder nearly dislodges his vocal chords by the time the second chorus has come around (“And fuck me if I say something you don’t wanna hear / And fuck me if you can only hear the treble in your head / Please help me to help yourself), leaving the listener to imagine the severity of the sins causing him to howl for reconciliation with such desperation.

Desperation of some nature plays a significant role throughout “Riot Act,” drawing its inspiration from both broad sources (national politics, relationship strife) and specific moments, particularly “Love Boat Captain,” a keys-laden rocker that responds directly to the 2000 Roskilde tragedy. Though the band released a statement of sympathy as artists, this response is the human grief they’ve been waiting to exhale. “It's an art to live with pain, mix the light into grey / Lost nine friends we'll never know, two years ago today / And if our lives became too long, would it add to our regret?” In the same vein, “Thumbing My Way” – an acoustic, backroads lament – finds Vedder contemplating the opportunities he’s missed in life. He offers a partial explanation eight songs later in “All or None.” Over a similarly distressed melody, Vedder whispers his most plaintive statement to date: “And I'm starting to believe / that this hopeless situation is what I'm trying to achieve.” From the man who once unwittingly roared for a generation, each of these shy, more private moments acknowledging mortality are truly affecting.

Age has also brought satisfying moments of optimism into the fold for Pearl Jam, allowing the band to retain a fierce social conscience. “I Am Mine” uses its anthemic choruses to champion indviduality, while “Cropduster” and ‘Green Disease” immediately rise to the top and remain after subsequent spins, particularly the latter, whose cruising, new-wave backbone supports an instantly memorable hook. As for guitarist Mike McCready, whose mature songwriting efforts have always impressively defied his shoot from the hip stage performances, “1/2 Full” is a return to form that finds his fingers opening up and infusing the song with a bit of live energy.

Divergence can be one of the strongest qualities an album can boast, and “Riot Act” marches in as many directions as it can muster in the time allotted. Sometimes, however, the free-spirited moments feel too stray when stacked next to the more textbook rock definitions a song like “Get Right” offers. “You Are” and Help, Help” lose themselves; distinctive because their personalities have always come through in the instrumention, here the guys seems lost in the adventure itself. Likewise, “Bushleaguer” is split with internal strife: Vedder’s most pointed political commentary fights for life by throwing some humorous hooks into his deadpan intonations, but it’s ultimately guitarist Stone Gossard’s straight, no chaser underbelly that makes the song compelling as a musical statement rather than a social one. Not meshed as tightly at times as 1998’s excellent “Yield,” the album at times takes a step too many and compensates too timidly by reverting to basics. The effect can be jarring, but Hell – that’s rock and roll, isn’t it?

The reality of “Riot Act” is that it’s not an easy read, nor a proclamation tailored for a public mass; Pearl Jam hasn’t taken the easy street, and they don’t want you to either. Like any art worth its weight, there are wrinkles. Dig beneath the folds and you’ll find there’s plenty worth sticking around for.