Pearl Jam, what we know about “Dark matter”, the new album
After the closed-door presentation a few days ago in Los Angeles, new details emerge about the next album Pearl Jam. The band’s 12th studio album should be titled “Dark matter”, like one of the songs whose title was already circulating: it would be only the second time that an album by the band takes its title from a song, after “Lighting bolt” ( 2013). The dark matter that gives the album its title is what makes up a large part of the universe, but it is not visible and detectable directly, but only through its effects.
The album doesn’t have a release date yet, as there hasn’t been an official announcement. But not only journalists or friends of the band were invited to the Trobadour party. There were also fans: some inside, some stationed outside the doors of the venue, and they started writing about it, even recording clips of the songs, from outside.
What we know
What we know for sure is what Spin published two days ago, in an article that we also took up: the mandate, in this case, was not to report details such as titles, but only some generic statements from the band, present at the event together with the album’s producer Andrew Watt, and some equally generic considerations on the sound of the songs Eddie Vedder declared “No hyperbole, I think this is our best work” (probably meant not literally as the best album of their career, but as the best thing they could do at this time), while Jeff Ament added “Not I could be more proud of us as a band.” There is talk of a great role for Matt Cameron and of songs that range from the singer-songwriter sound to Tom Petty to others that are harder.
The songs and the sound
The interesting thing is that the fans have practically released almost the entire tracklist: “Scared of Fear” would be part of the album,
“Upper Hand”, the title track “Dark Matter”, “React/Respond”, “Running”, “Something Special”, “Wreckage” (not “Wrecker”, as previously reported), “Waiting For Stevie” (inspired by (stevie Wonder, guest on Vedder’s solo album “Earthling”, produced by Andrew Watt), “Setting Sun”, perhaps the only ballad on the album.
The tracklist is partial, and the songs are not in order: there should be 11. But those who have listened to the album speak of a dark sound, almost Soundgarden-like (Matt Cameron’s band), simultaneously new and recognisable, certainly different from ” Gigaton”, released 4 years ago
Several of the various posts and videos on YouTube posted by fans have been removed, but something is still there: we heard some fragments of the songs, recorded by a fan behind an emergency exit of the Trobadour, in a post still online. Other traces of these details remain from the forums, including a description of the artwork – also shown at the event – and compared to that of “Binaural”: plausible, given that the 2000 album had an image of the telescope on the cover Hubble, and this record has an astrophysical title.
All that remains is to wait for the official announcement for confirmations, and to understand when we will be able to listen to the new Pearl Jam album.
