Gigaton

Consistency is still key, and it’s good to know that Pearl Jam still maintains the edged angst that’s served them well from the start. Indeed, Gigaton provides a most pervasive perspective.

The band’s forthcoming album has a little bit of everything for everyone. It’s been seven years since the last Pearl Jam studio album, and the world has changed irrevocably since then. But thankfully some things remain reliably the same. ... Pearl Jam have given us an unexpected album of hope. Welcome back.

Fresh ideas abound nearly everywhere on Gigaton.

It's a sturdy rock album from five guys who know what they're doing, took time till they had something to say, are interpolating new influences, and sound stoked to be back together in a room. Die-hard fans will be pleased, and more casual fans will be pleasantly surprised.

Calling Gigaton a return to form is a matter of expectations: diehards will claim they never faltered, while fans who checked out 20 years ago, when things got weird, will find lots to like but little to love. Perhaps the most notable group likely to be inspired are Pearl Jam themselves; too long in the rock hinterlands, the band finally seem reacquainted with their creative powers.

It’s Pearl Jam’s most incensed album since 2006. It’s their most musically inventive since 1998. And, by virtue of its themes, it is their most gravely needed of their entire career. It is, in short, a triumph.

Strong and loose, political and personal, Pearl Jam get the balance absolutely right. [May 2020, p.84]

This is just simple, honest-to-goodness, feel-good rock ‘n’ roll, and the world is better for it being out there. More like this, please.

The first four songs alone are a revelation of sustained focus and fury. ... It would be impressive if Gigaton retained the thrill and invention of its first half, but that’s a tall order. There are invariably duds mixed amongst its 57-minute runtime.

Co-produced by the band and Josh Evans, it’s filled with all the markers of cerebral, studio-born rock music: drum loops and programmed synths, swirling keys and fretless bass, wide dynamics and spacey textures. For the first time in a while, the winning moments are the slower cuts. ... The artistic rejuvenation that Gigaton aims to provide still seems somewhat out of reach.

Gigaton sounds like Pearl Jam convincingly doing their very best to not sound like Pearl Jam. Liberated from their past and their expectations, the band have freed themselves to take some long overdue risks. At this point, they are a very long way from the gas station indeed.

Much of the material here would fit seamlessly on any of their records since 1996's No Code. ... Gigaton is a reminder that Pearl Jam are a band totally comfortable in their own skin. [Jun 2020, p.104]

Gigaton is a testament to how Pearl Jam’s own deeply held dissatisfaction still burns brighter than ever.

Gigaton has a little something for everyone. It’s a complex, dynamic album full of earnest emotion and subtle humor. Its form factor recalls both 1996’s No Code and 1998’s Yield.

This is the sound of a band working hard to evolve, and if the strain of incorporating such a large swath of musical experimentation occasionally shows, well, maybe that’s the cost of attempting new tricks at an advanced age. Never let it be said that the band embraced different sounds at the expense of its tried-and-true formulas, however. Part of what makes Gigaton fascinating is the way these sonic departures actually fuse in unexpected ways with some of the band’s traditional four-on-the-floor stompers.

Almost 30 years into a career you would once have put money on ending within five, Gigaton suggests Pearl Jam might still be around long after Trump is a distant memory.

The band seem guided more by instinct than any sense of formula, but there are some superb embellishments – a fearsome guitar solo on “Take the Long Way”, eerie synth ripples on “Retrograde” – that build to the surprising final track, “River Cross”.

It’s a big, angry, pile-driving, end-times heavy rock workout with frontman Eddie Vedder alternately spewing fury and despair at the state of the world.

Pearl Jam remain at their formidable best as a pure-hearted rock'n'roll band. [May 2020, p.32]

Intricate and thought-out is the name of the game for Gigaton, the band’s 11th studio record and first in some seven years.