★★★★★
BY SELENA FRAGASSI
Remember the Eddie Vedder who used to swing like Tarzan from festival scaffolding and don George Bush masks at shows in the middle of the Panhandles? The early Pearl Jam albums that would echo op-eds about dissidents and high school massacre-ists? The ballsy five-man army who aired the dirty laundry of the Grammy Awards and Ticketmaster--and got away with it? Yeah... how about we have them back, please...
- blurtonline.com
2013-12-20
★★★★★
Pearl Jam is the new classic rock. With Lightning Bolt, the second album into what seems like a new return-to-classic-Pearl Jam era, the band has even further shunted any self-imposed notions of what it "should" be and seemingly morphed into what it is, or at least what it will be moving forward. The album's first single, "Mind Your Manners," reeled in the faithful with a hard-driving track that takes its cues from 1996's "Lukin," and the band followed it up with "Sirens," a huge and somewhat...
- www.undertheradarmag.com
2013-12-04
★★★★★
Has Eddie Vedder outgrown Pearl Jam? Primary composer of the Seattle quintet's previous LP, 2009 ramrod
- www.austinchronicle.com
2013-11-21
★★★★★
Tweet Bolted Awake While performing recently in Philadelphia, it came to Eddie Vedder's attention that the evening carried special significance. It was Pearl Jam's 23rd anniversary. The audience sang "Happy Birthday" to the band and Vedder offered gracious thanks for the unwavering support from the fans over the many years. The band is on the road in support of their tenth studio album, Lightning Bolt, selling out arenas across the US as they've almost always done...
- www.mxdwn.com
2013-11-02
★★★★★
Monkeywrench/Republic Back in 2011, Pearl Jam celebrated its 20th anniversary by hosting a two-day music festival and releasing a career-spanning documentary with an accompanying soundtrack. Now, with its 10th studio effort, Lightning Bolt, the Seattle act has essentially produced an album that touches upon those previous two decades without attempting to duplicate them. The band's early rebellious side rises on the album's first single, "Mind Your Manners...
- www.jambands.com
2013-11-04
★★★★★
The World Series has begun. And with it, the forty-eight (!) songs from their back catalogue that Pearl Jam licensed to FOX Sports to use during the broadcast. Pearl Jam have never attempted to hide their love of America's pastime, from palling around with pitcher/rocker "Black" Jack McDowell in the mid-'90s to a recent gig at Wrigley Field that, much like an actual baseball game, was beset with epic rain delays...
- cokemachineglow.com
2013-10-25
★★★★★
Full disclosure: I've never been a huge Pearl Jam fan. While I respect their music and have heard endlessly about the religious experience that is their live show, Pearl Jam has long remained one of those bands whose albums take up ample real estate on my iPod, but not so much in my actual listening rotation...
- absolutepunk.net
2013-10-22
★★★★★
It feels impossible that 'In Utero' is already two decades old, but even more unthinkable is that Nirvana contemporaries Pearl Jam are still trotting out their turgid rock blub-fests. The quintet's 10th album tries to experiment with prog-lite ('Yellow Moon') and jangle pop ('Sleeping By Myself') and delivers some punky four-chorders ('Mind Your Manners')...
- www.nme.com
2013-10-16
★★★★★
Given that, since they released debut album Ten in 1991, Pearl Jam have never taken more than a four year break between records, 2009's Backspacer still felt as though they were back in the game. Rawer and more inspired than any band at their stage in a career had any right to be, it certainly set them up for their third decade as a going concern.
Even with one of their longer gaps behind them, Lightning Bolt picks up exactly where Backspacer left off...
- www.state.ie
2013-10-16