No Code

by

Pearl Jam

Edit

I remember getting this disc as a birthday present the year it came out. Much like the cover artwork, at first it seemed weird and too jumpy, but after repeated listens, it all started to fall in place.

While I'm admittedly not the biggest Pearl Jam fan out there, my comments may seem a bit worthless to bigger fans, But...this album is a masterpiece. It's dark, moody, eerie, ambient, reflective, searching, brutal and peaceful all at the same time, which leads me to some degree to believe that this is Pearl Jams's biggest artistic statement. It starts with the quiet, dark and ambient Sometimes. Then it bursts into the explosive Hail, Hail, which is followed by the hypnotic, middle-eastern Who You Are, which features an elf-like choir sound brought on by the vocal overdubs. It's weird but excellent. In My Tree is hard to describe actually, but it's somewhat catchy and groovy. Smile is a mid-tempo rocker. Off He Goes is a slow, dark, quiet and reflective piece with some poignant lyrics. Habit is a brutal rocker about drug addiction, if I'm not mistaken. Red Mosquito has a Neil Young type feel to it, which is bluesy/country-esque and heavy. Lukin is a 1 minute rocker with Eddie Vedder growling at super speed, which makes it hard to understand what he is saying, check out some websites to get the lyrics. Present Tense starts out slow and absorbing, then turns into a musical assault. Mankind is another heavy rocker, this time out, it's sung by Stone Gossard, which I rather like. He sounds like Ed Roland of Collective Soul. I'm Open is like a poetic number. Musically it's dark, ambient and somewhat new age-esque. Love the chant "I'm Open, "I'm Open". Around The Bend is an acoustic, peaceful number to end out this spectacular disc. This is an excellent, musically transcendent disc. Highly recommended to music lovers with a sense of adventure, space, mood, reflection and introspection.

Few musicians seem to resent--nay, to hate--the spotlight as much as Eddie Vedder, and this album at times feels like a calculated attempt to run away from it.

It's not the songs that do this--they're often great, especially fan favorites like "Hail, Hail" and "Off He Goes." No, it's the sequencing, which leaves the listener feeling like an airline passenger buffeted by heavy turbulence. The slow-fast-slow-fast order doubtless turned many fans away and left them rooting through their Case Logics for their old copies of "Ten." Those who gave it a few listens, though, usually came to realize that there were some real gems here, songs that have become staples of their (frequently excellent) concerts and live discs.

My advice is to listen to the tracks in the following order: 1,2,4,8,9,7,5,3,6,10,11,13. Leave out 12--good ol' Eddie has marred far too many of his own albums with pretentious ramblings. (Vitalogy being perhaps the best example of this--it would have been near perfect without "Bugs" and the final track.) I hate using the "skip" buttons, but the whole album sounds better that way. (If you can come up with a better sequencing, please email it or post it.) Or just pick up the three-disc set from their final Seattle show on November 6, 2000. It's surely one of the best live albums by any band, ever, and it carries an energy and vitality too often lacking in Pearl Jam's later studio output.