Over the last thirty years, Pearl Jam has gone through many musical iterations despite the lineup remaining largely the same. Once grunge icons known for its raucous live shows, the Seattle band has constantly evolved, becoming more melodic and increasing its musical diversity over time. The band’s eleventh album, Gigaton, is the band’s most experimental to date and its greatest departure from the signature sound it minted with 1991’s Ten.
Gigaton is Pearl Jam’s softest album, although it does have its harder moments, such as the headbanging anthem “Superblood Wolfmoon.” Throughout the album, the band blends new styles into its music, such as the pump organ in “River Cross” and the very-not-grunge synthesizers that appear in several songs. The most notable stylistic departure is the peppy electro-funk of “Dance of the Clairvoyants.” Most of this experimentation works, such as the twangy Americana of “Retrograde,” but there are occasional misfires. Both “Seven O’Clock” and “Buckle Up” are dull, forgettable, and skippable. 4
When the album works, however, it showcases the immense talent Pearl Jam has honed over the last three decades. “Who Ever Said” kicks off the album as a mash-up of Pearl Jam’s various musical tendencies, its sound contorting and convulsing from angry rock to soft, resigned cynicism. Synthesizer flourishes come and go as the guitars sway from melodic to heavy and back again. “All the answers will be found in the mistakes that we have made,” Eddie Vedder sings during the slower, softer middle of the song, which slowly builds back into up-tempo aggression. As the song gets rowdier, Vedder goes from introspection to shouting a warning of “our freedoms fraught with danger being circumscribed, a life cut short and circumcised.”
Stone Gossard’s crunchy power chord riffs of “Take the Long Way,” along with Mike McCready’s masterful guitar solo, harken back to early Pearl Jam, but the punch it delivers is lessened by discordance and mixing that drowns out the guitars in the chorus. “Quick Escape,” a fantasy tale about escaping Trumpism, is built around Jeff Ament’s rattling, propulsive bassline and McCready’s psychedelic lead guitar licks.
The slow, brooding “Alright” evokes a sense of desolation, as the sparse sonic landscape led by Ament’s lonesome keyboard transitions into dusty acoustic guitars in the choruses. “It’s alright to shut it down, disappear in thin air; it’s your home,” Vedder sings in his distinctive baritone.
The solo acoustic “Comes Then Goes” is the album’s most streamlined composition, the simplicity placing the focus on the rootsy sound and Vedder’s imagery. “Divisions come and trouble multiplied, incisions made by scalpel blades of time,” Vedder sings over his staccato strumming, his voice echoing in a musty harmony.
In the album-closing “River Cross,” Vedder shares his discontent with the political landscape. “The government thrives on discontent,” he sings over a swelling organ. “Proselytizing and profitizing as our will all but disappears.” Despite the somber mood, though, Vedder holds onto hope of perseverance, in the final refrain repeating the mantras “share the light” and “won’t hold us down.”
Gigaton certainly isn’t peak Pearl Jam. It lacks the raw aggression of Vs and doesn’t match the lyrical prowess of Ten or Yield. It is, however, a step forward after 2013’s disappointing Lightning Bolt and the result of a band that continues to evolve and mature as it ages. By continuing to experiment rather than resting on its laurels and pumping out another album that sounds like the old stuff, Pearl Jam continues to build on its legacy, creating a series of sonic tapestries, each of which captivates in its own way.
