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All Music Guide

Pearl Jam hasn't sounded as alive or engaging as they do here since at least Vitalogy, if not longer.

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Billboard

Pearl Jam is fully, comprehensively re-energized.

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PopMatters

Pearl Jam is another straight-up collection of raw, blistered rock and moody mid-tempo balladry. The difference here, and the reason for excitement, is that the self-titled record more consistently achieves the grandeur, rage, and beauty they’ve always pursued, throughout its entirety.

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Prefix Magazine

Strikes with a magnificent urgency.

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Entertainment Weekly

The seriously hopped-up effort fans have been pining for since Vitalogy.

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The Onion (A.V. Club)

The band gladly sacrifices fluidity for drama, and even catchy Pearl Jam tracks like "World Wide Suicide" (with its winding hook and acid lyrics) and "Parachutes" (with its charmingly odd acoustic bounce) periodically wander into the murk.

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Rolling Stone

As immediate and despairing as breaking news from Baghdad... Pearl Jam is also as big and brash in fuzz and backbone as Led Zeppelin's Presence. [4 May 2006, p.55]

Amazon.com

The band socks away the adventurous experimentation that dogged some of its most recent records to investigate a post-September 11, war-ravaged world overflowing with urgency and significance.

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The New York Times

Now as ever, Pearl Jam takes itself seriously. But it delivers that seriousness not with the sodden self-importance of rock superstardom, but with the craft and hunger of a band still proving itself on the spot. [1 May 2006]

cokemachineglow

And while it most certainly does fill this grunge kid with nostalgia for a simpler time, it’s the first latter day Pearl Jam album that is plenty good enough to stand on its own.

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Dot Music

Unfashionable as they probably are, Pearl Jam have gone some way to regaining both their fire and their relevance with this, a record that takes equally from classic Neil Young stylings as it does raging, polemic punk.

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Paste Magazine

Concise, focused and even, it’s a great addition to the band’s increasingly rich catalog.

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ShakingThrough.net

It's a pleasant surprise for those who feared that the group's glory days were long gone.

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Stylus Magazine

Song-for-song, they haven’t made an album this misstep-free since Vs.

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E! Online

Songs like "World Wide Suicide" and "Severed Head" even come close to recreating the hard rock thrills of the band's billion-selling debut, Ten.

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Los Angeles Times

The music is leaner and more concise than we're used to from Pearl Jam, the performances brisk, frisky and light on their feet. [30 Apr 2006]

Slant Magazine

It's got all the elements of a great album, but it doesn't evoke the feeling of listening to the band's first three seminal albums.

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Playlouder

This is Pearl Jam, it's down to you whether that means anything or not.

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Uncut

If their songs occasionally resemble the power ballads that grunge supposedly outmoded, that's the price of being a truly potent classic rock band. [Jun 2006, p.109]

Spin

They seem to be having fun. [Jun 2006, p.79]

Mojo

Pearl Jam sound reborn, vital. [Jul 2006, p.112]

Austin Chronicle

The middle gets muddy, as they return to their weaker late-Nineties fare (read: "ballads"), but it's a strong album overall.

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Blender

Tighter and more energized than anything the band has done since Vitalogy. [Jun 2006, p.142]

NOW Magazine

While it's hard to question their motives and integrity, Avocado fails to deliver the grand statement we might expect.

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The Guardian

Though few of these 13 numbers have the drama of tracks by the Who or Led Zeppelin, from whom the band draw much of their style, Pearl Jam play like men on a mission.

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Pitchfork

Instead of trying to rage against the machine, they're appealing to its intellectual nature. Unfortunately, this nuance is steamrolled by the group's need for fan-friendly riffage.

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New Musical Express

This is a further stumble away from the glory days of 'Ten'. [29 Apr 2006, p.39]

Q Magazine

[It] is a lusher and less challenging listen than recent efforts, but it's also curiously featureless, the sound of a group drained of passion and fresh ideas. [Jun 2006, p.118]

What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this album is 8.8 (out of 10) based on 272 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Brian R. gave it a9:
This album is probably the most political the band has released. It has none of the unintelligible screaming songs that require a fast car and a good sound system. This is a matured Eddie, waxing poetic about what's happening here in America right now. "Gone" is one of the best tracks on this disc, another song about driving away from something.

Alan E gave it a9:
Damn this album kicks ass. cant imagine them getting better then this.

Dave R. gave it a9:
This is my second favourite Pearl Jam album. It opens with urgency, and doesn't let up until the beautiful Parachutes. Marker In The Sand has a killer chorus that's excellence is matched only by Corduroy. Unemployable is different from anything they've done but is just as undeniable. Army Reserve is scathing but beautiful, and the album finished off with two amazing, songs: one, the poignant and heart-breaking Come Back and two, the epic Inside Job. There isn't a bad cut on the entire album, and it's easily their BEST SINCE YIELD (despite what others who gave it a ridiculous ZERO might tell you...). I love every Pearl Jam album. To me they are the best and most underrated band in the world, and this album certainly did not disappoint. Do yourself a favour and pick it up NOW.

Matt T. gave it a1:
I was a massive fan I saw them live and then after this album and their last few they have turned into dad rock, bands like NiN still have an edge or sexiness, this is just music for musics sake, I had the chance to see them this month and turned it down, my friend who loves them went and said I was right to not go it left him cold, I loved pj but they are not the pj I loved and now I have to admit it, Eddie will always have a great voice and the 1 is for army reserve. Brian J stop criticising other peoples opinions, you have yours we have ours (It's called free speech) unless u want us all to like what you do and agree with you because you are so clever and cool.

Johnny L. gave it a10:
This album really shows how Pearl Jam has grown up and advanced musically as well as lyrically. At the same time they brought back some of the old all-out-rock attitude on a majority of the songs. Genius, simply genius!!

Bran J. gave it a10:
Stop comparing every album by Pearl Jam with another of their albums! You all just sound stupid. This is a great album, I'm not going to compare it... Each album by Pearl Jam is good in its own right... they each have their own strengths and weaknesses. If you can't get that through your damn skulls, then you aren't real fans of Pearl Jam or even music. They are a damn good band, way better then the crap on the radio today. If you think they suck, well then lets see you people come up with an album, to me it sounds like you can make a better album then PJ. I would love to see that happen, then we'll see who really sucks.

Peter K gave it a5:
..disappoitmant

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