Chimpomatic

Pearl Jam

Pearl Jam

Pearl Jam have a knack of sounding like a muscle car cruising down an empty road in Montana. Masters of the key/pace change, they often shift up and down gears, speeding up and slowing down but always sticking to the road.

While Life Wasted and World Wide Suicide are great openers (except for the title "World Wide Suicide" - definitely a case for 'keep the title out of the lyrics') rocking all the shift change tricks, it's not until six songs in that we get a real change of style - with Parachutes. Similar in tone to the Stones' track of the same name, this great little number is much more in the vein of 1996's No Code.

Things get more more varied on what would have been side two in the vinyl days, with Gone being the gem on the album. It's Pearl Jam at their best, using a simple quiet start to build up the emotion and sound into an awesome wall of noise.

Army Reserve is one song that doesn't quite click, somehow sounding like the U2-style jangling guitar was written separately from the lyrics, but the album finishes with two excellent tracks. Come Home sounds like a cover of a lost classic by Smokey Robinson or Otis Redding and is the band at their best. Inside Job, written by guitarist Mike McCready, is a moody slow burner. Staying just the right side of Dire Straits, the song would fit well on a movie soundtrack and brings the album to a worthy close.

The album is definitely a democratic effort and the input of the entire band leans the sound down the more conventional end of the Pearl Jam spectrum - generally sounding more like Yield or Riot Act than Vitalogy or No Code. That's never a criticism with these guys however and although not as lyrical as some of their work it's a solid, thoroughly enjoyable rock album from a band totally assured of their craft.

Links

Official Site

Tags

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#Music

25th Apr 2006 - Tweet - Tumblr

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Clunky French revenge actioner, with Jean Reno hunting down les mobsters that put 22 bullets in him.

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20th May 2012

Donnie Darko

Post modern, post @DougCoupland time travel flick that favours style over substance.

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19th May 2012

Class

80s derivative of The Graduate - that hasn't held up too well, despite the early brat pack connection.

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19th May 2012

Transformers Dark of the Moon

So OTT I had to watch in two sittings, with a final hour of unprecedented Bayhem.

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19th May 2012

Super 8

Spielberg derivative that's more 'Goonies' than 'ET'. Not unsuccessful, but lacking the master's touch.

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14th May 2012

Everything Must Go

Will Ferrell gets serious in this engaging drama/comedy - drawn from a Raymond Carver short.

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13th May 2012

Gimme The Loot

Engaging low-key indie drama debut about graffiti bombers in NYC that won at @SXSW.

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11th May 2012

Dark Shadows

Vampire meets 70s. Another Burton/Depp dressing up box: a few gags, but messy plot strands & nowhere to go.

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8th May 2012

Breathless

Superficial 80s remake of the New Wave classic. Obviously made an impression on Tarantino.

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7th May 2012

A Little Bit of Heaven

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4th May 2012

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3rd May 2012

Behind Enemy Lines

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2nd May 2012

Contraband

Efficient smuggling thriller. Mark Wahlberg's turn for one-last-job.

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1st May 2012

Tower Heist

Messy condo robbery w Ben Stiller in charge. Wasted opp to get Eddie Murphy on screen in non-Donkey role.

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1st May 2012

We Bought A Zoo

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1st May 2012

50 / 50

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1st May 2012

Chronicle

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1st May 2012

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30th Apr 2012

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30th Apr 2012

Bad Teacher

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29th Apr 2012

The Avengers

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27th Apr 2012

Collateral

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16th Apr 2012

The Messenger

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15th Apr 2012

Mr Mom

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15th Apr 2012

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14th Apr 2012

Captain America

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Enjoyable, old fashioned actioner, with plenty of nice comic book moments.

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2nd Apr 2012

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2nd Apr 2012

Horrible Bosses

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2nd Apr 2012

Warrior

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2nd Apr 2012

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We were forewarned:- there were signs in the foyer that there would be no warm-up act and no interval, just a straight performance. And that was exactly what we got – just under two hours of Joan Baez. The years have been kind, and at 71 she walked on stage looking as slim and elegant as ever. The hair is now cropped and the colour is silver, but then that applied to most of the audience as well.

The stage was bare apart from a comfy sofa and a standard lamp, and she was accompanied for most of the evening by her son Gabriel Harris on percussion and the talented Dirk Powell on mandolin, accordion and just about everything else.

The atmosphere was relaxed and the songs were a mixture of old favourites and the not so old – Farewell Angelina, God On Our Side, House of the Rising Sun, and Diamonds and Rust, a reference to her relationship with Bob Dylan. We also got John Lennon’s Imagine and Donovan’s Catch the Wind, and the evening finished with The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down and Blowin’ in the Wind. Her voice is still haunting although she avoids many of the high notes now, and I did think that the tempo of some of the songs (particularly House of the Rising Sun) was a bit slower than it used to be. But she can certainly still sing. And she still believes in what she sings.

We went home happy, and although the singer is still a protester I wondered how many of the audience still are?!

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26th Mar 2012 - Add Comment - Tweet

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23rd Mar 2012

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21st Mar 2012

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21st Mar 2012

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20th Mar 2012

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17th Mar 2012

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12th Mar 2012

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10th Mar 2012

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5th Mar 2012

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4th Mar 2012

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3rd Mar 2012

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1st Mar 2012

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Halliwell says: Dull and plodding gangster movie.

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25th Feb 2012

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Halliwell says: Effervescent comedy-thriller that bubbles merrily along.**

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23rd Feb 2012

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Shapeless pacing and shoddy production values make for one of the most over-rated film school favorites.

Halliwell says: Absurdly brutalized version of the above, with detailed violence and a superabundance of foul language. Scarface has now become an emigre Cuban, and the film seems to want to make a political statement.

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20th Feb 2012