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90Pearl Jam has made some of the most vital music of its career.
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80Sticking to a formula -- a formula that works for them -- the band sounds fiercer than ever on Riot Act.
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Those waiting for another record as challenging as 'Vitalogy' will be left disappointed. But 'Riot Act' is the sound of a band entering a powerful middle-age. They still deserve your attention.
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80From its downbeat organ opening to its exhilarating climax, it's almost the sound of a garage band taking on 70s prog-rock excess - all the ambition and none of the flabby indulgence.
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In some ways, Riot Act is the album that Pearl Jam has been wanting to make since Vitalogy -- a muscular art rock record, one that still hits hard but that is filled with ragged edges and odd detours.
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The most quietly adventurous, intriguing document the group has assembled in ages.
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Eddie's heartfelt lyrics rarely cohere... [but their] grooves still sound taut, emotive, and world-class.
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75The frequently acoustic guitars and the frontman's mumbled ramblings on death, politics and love make this a fairly quiet, and deep, Riot.
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In mood, style and tone, Riot Act sounds like every other Pearl Jam record, but this is not necessarily a bad thing. [Dec 2002, p.89]
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70'Riot Act' may be neither 'the-best-album-since' nor 'a-brilliant-return-to-form', but neither is it more-of-the-same-but-less-so.
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70With its restless spirituality and dense, decidedly un-pop arrangements, Riot Act perhaps most closely resembles that first album (No Code) of the post-Vitalogy years.
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70This album has plenty of ideas and plenty of 'moments.' [Jan 2003, p.92]
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70Like their last three records... [Riot Act] balances emotive bombast with a taut, sweaty hard-rock attack. [Dec 2002, p.137]
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60A couple of songs could do with more melody and less of Mike McCready's spidery guitar breaks. [Dec 2002, p.132]
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60The production seems to capture a band that's playing live, with the guitarists constantly pushing each other and tunes evolving on the spot. [#11, p.122]
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60An adult rock record in which nuance succeeds over bombast. [Dec 2002, p.108]
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The familiarity of this straightforward tumble sounds tired -- the musicians struggle to put their backs and hearts into the Mudhoney-ish rocker "Save You." But like Neil Young at his most deliberately despondent, Pearl Jam sound purposefully tired.
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60Hints at greatness, but never quite sustains it.
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This is a definite upswing from the steaming pile of crap that was Binaural, but not the return to form that older fans of the band may have been hoping for.
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49Riot Act meanders from one song to the next with an overwhelming insipidness.