Pearl Jam
Vs.

So, I've checked. This is the fourth review of the record. Think carefully, dear Fabio, these soulless beasts might notice and skin you alive because this isn't a novelty... I'll take the risk, let's move on!

I'll be honest, here I'm biased. Pearl Jam is my favorite band, and this is their album I listen to the most willingly. Yet, it's easy to notice how artistically it is much inferior to other episodes of this varied discography. However, what continually draws me to "Vs" is how it's still enveloped in that warm and profound breath that characterizes many grunge albums (please, don't start the usual debate does it exist/does it not exist), but at the same time, it initiates the style that even today can be recognized in the DNA of Vedder & Co.

The previous effort, "Ten," was the result of numerous guitar riffs created during the Mother Love Bone era by rhythm guitarist Stone Gossard. For this reason, I feel like considering its successor as our five's real debut. Here are styles latent until that point in their musical alchemy.

Don't worry, I won't start doing the hated track-by-track; I will limit myself to citing a few examples. In the somewhat heavier category, we find the first two opening tracks, "Go" and "Animal," both played with drop D tuning, then a more frantic and screamed track like "Blood," and finally "Leash," which more than any other track continues the style of the debut album, and was indeed already played on the related tour.

However, there is no shortage of acoustic ballads, "Daughter" and "Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town," old-school singer-songwriter style. "Rearviewmirror" introduces into the group a way of writing songs still carried on today, while "Rats" is structured on a lounge base.

Two unique tracks are "Indifference," ineffable, moving, and "W.M.A." (White Man American), a primitive and tribal mantra inspired by an episode of racism.

The cover embodies the mental state in which the band, or perhaps only some members of it, felt they were in at that precise historical moment. No launch video, almost no interviews at the release of the album. Yet it will sell more than 980,000 copies in the first week, eclipsing the sales of the rival "In Utero" ("only" 180,000). Strange how the second today is decidedly more popular than the first. Side effects of a shotgun blast?

I think my review adds nothing to the already present three. Actually, I believe there's even less written here. If you think so, cover me with 1s, at least I had fun, for goodness' sake!