Pearl Jam’s musical dark matter: here is “Dark matter”
THE Pearl Jam they’re back, and with a bang. He’s out “Dark matter”first single and title track of their new album, the twelfth of their career, produced by Andrew Watts. The song was released this morning at 6am, after weeks of unconfirmed rumours. The title of the album, however, is very confirmed and will be the same as the single: “Dark matter” will be released on April 19th and will contain 11 songs (below the tracklist).
Meanwhile, there is this first song, with its “visualizer” video, edited by the Moldovan artist Alexandr Gnezdilov, also author of the album cover.
The song is credited to the entire band, and Watt is also among the authors. The Italian Marco Sonzini, a sound engineer from Piacenza who recently worked on the Rolling Stones album (here is our interview) also collaborated on the song. The official video (of which you can see a preview on social media) and the announcement of a world tour (from which Italy could initially be excluded, even if the rumors of one or two summer dates have been chasing each other for some time).
Dark Matter
As a preview of the new album, it’s a good hit – very different from “Dance of the clairvoyants”, the funky song that preceded “Gigaton” 4 years ago. With “Dark Matter” Pearl Jam returns to their more rock and dark side.
The beginning is a round of drums in which Matt Cameron is Matt Cameron, that is, one of the best rock drummers around. Those who said that the song was reminiscent of Soundgarden were right: not only for the drums, but also for the guitar – which first starts with a dry riff then deviates with turns reminiscent of those of Kim Thayil, as well as Mike McCready’s solo which arrives at the end of the song, while in other moments there is another guitar with an effect similar to that of “You are”, a song from “Riot act”.
In all this, Eddie Vedder’s voice is left a little behind in the mix, with an effective chorus, which is followed by a verse with the title (dark matter is what makes up much of the universe but is not directly detectable if not through its gravitational effects):
It’s strange these days
When everybody else pays
For someone else’s mistake
This blame takes shape
Still everybody else pays
For someone else’s mistakeYou’re running away
We’re pulling apart
In all of this dark matter
The album
The album will be released on April 19th and, as reported by Pearljamonline should have a special vinyl edition for the Record Store Daywhich this year will be held on Saturday 20 April.
The tracklist will consist of
1. Scared of Fear
2. React, Respond
3. Wreckage
4. Dark Matter
5. Won’t Tell
6. Upper Hand
7. Waiting for Stevie
8. Running
9. Something Special
10. Got to Give
11. Setting Sun
The previews
The weeks leading up to the new album by Pearl Jam they were intense and also a little confusing: 10 days ago we took stock of the situation. Last January 31st the group had presented the album in front of a selected audience at the Troubadour in Los Angeles: although the meeting was behind closed doors something (inevitably) leaked out, with rumors and fragments circulated by fans – probably a marketing strategy to create hype. Since that day, the anticipation among fans has become increasingly frantic, fueled by a video of just under half a minute published last Friday by the fans themselves. Pearl Jam on their social channels.
The following day, Ten Club members received a newsletter in which hidden links directed to pre-save the new album on Spotify and Apple Music. Finally, on Sunday 11 February a 30-second instrumental snippet of .“Dark matter”.
The latest album by Pearl Jam, “Gigaton” (read the review here), was published in March 2020, four years ago. Eddie Vedder of the new album he said: “No hyperbole, I think this is our best work.” It’s out today “Dark matter”all we have to do is listen to it.
