Pearl Jam
Gigaton

2020, the eleventh album by Pearl Jam arrives with a strange title: Gigaton.

The Gigaton is a unit of measure expressing the energy released by nuclear explosions.

A Gigaton is equivalent to a billion tons of TNT: the energy that can complete the destruction of the Earth.

This is the main theme of this concept album, which is in some ways a modernization of the theme of the promised land, that “promised land” that can no longer be on Earth where everything has been destroyed. Man begins to look beyond, past the stratosphere, perhaps to the red planet.

Musically, among those who hoped for a return to Grunge from the Seattle band and those who were convinced they would definitively become pop, radio-friendly, those of us, like me, who hoped for a rock album composed of good, sometimes excellent, songs and played by the book, won out.

So. Precisely the sound, in my opinion, is the most beautiful thing about Pearl Jam's album: a very direct sound, which gives the impression, and certainly is on many tracks, of being the result of a jam session of a musically free band.

Proof of this is the fact that most of the tracks abundantly exceed five minutes in length.

Quick escape, lyrics by Vedder (and what lyrics) and music by bassist Ament (and you can tell, with a great bass line throughout the track) begins with a cadenced, almost reggae rhythm of bass, drums, and guitar, with Vedder singing a bit quietly until the chorus, where parts are reversed, the music becomes melodic, but Vedder's voice becomes angry and is softened by the band's backing vocals… "Had to quick escape… had to!", he shouts, leading us to a beautiful, very acid solo by McCready, between psychedelia and grunge, up to the “new” promised land, this time extraterrestrial “And here we are, the red planet… Craters on the horizon”. This track is among the best in my opinion on the album, summarizing it well both musically and lyrically.

Seven o'clock is musically a complex piece, written by the whole band, except for drummer Cameron: the verse is a mid-tempo rock, all guitar – drums, and the chorus, slow dominated by the sound of the synth with a new wave effect, leads to a choral finale. The beautiful lyrics by Vedder again speak of the dream of a better world, an oasis… “7 o’clock in the morning, I got a message from afar… an oasis where there are still dreams being born”, where man will regret the mistakes made on Earth… “Caught the butterfly, broke its wings and then put it on display. Stripped of all its beauty once it couldn’t fly high… another of God’s creations avoided just to be thrown away”.

Never destination, is an essential rock piece, mean enough, hysterical like the man it tells about, a man blinded by his madness… "madness makes crazy, there's a raging sea, an ocean in my eyes, waves are rolling, I'm going blind… I won't be caught, kicking and screaming, you have to knock me off the shelf, it seems like an illusion, is it happening?… Disease of confusion, stripped of our grace”. Lyrics and music by Vedder, with a good solo from McCready, fast, rock n' roll, between Who and Chuck Berry.

Retrograde is a dark song. It starts acoustic with a very “metallic” guitar, softens in the chorus, eventually taking the form of a piece with psychedelic overtones reminiscent of Pink Floyd, embracing a bitter text, perhaps the most bitter on the album… "They say the stars align when things are better than now, feel the evil spinning around us, seven seas are rising, The eternal futures fade away”.

Comes Then Goes, music and lyrics by Vedder, is a personal homage, at least that's how I read it, to his long-time friend Chris Cornell. A jewel, this, an amazing acoustic blues, which personally reminded me of the tormented atmospheres of that masterpiece that was MTV Unplugged by Nirvana… “Where have you been? Can I find a glimpse of my friend, I don't know where or when one of us went… Sadness carries with it a sea of ​​tears, would it be better if love had never been?”

River Cross, music and lyrics again by Vedder, ends beautifully. The organ takes center stage, with little else, percussion and synth touches: a track that musically gives the idea of an immense space, almost infinite, like death that closes the attempt to escape

…"I always thought I'd cross that river

The other side, no longer distant

As I got closer, it turned and widened

Horizon now, it's fading

Drifting in the undertow

I can't spot a figure on the main land"…

A hard, bitter album both in music and lyrics, in some ways a premonition of the difficult months we’ve added to our life’s baggage… a microorganism that takes over a sick world, making it explode like the TNT of the Gigaton.