Pearl Jam - Lightning Bolt
On October 15, 2013, Pearl Jam released "Lightning Bolt", their tenth studio album.
Four years had passed since the short, tight, and relatively upbeat "Backspacer" (2009), when the Seattle quintet—vocalist Eddie Vedder, guitarists Mike McCready and Stone Gossard, bassist Jeff Ament, and drummer Matt Cameron released their tenth album. But unlike the lighthearted new-wave punk energy of its predecessor, Lightning Bolt caught Pearl Jam at a much more thoughtful, mature, and sobering point: a band in its 23rd year together, its members approaching 50, looking with wide eyes at the fragility of life, mortality, faith, and long-term relationships.
To produce the album, the band reunited with legendary producer Brendan O'Brien, the man who shaped the sound of their masterpiece albums in the 90s – from the remix of their debut album "Ten", through the production of "Vs.", "Vitalogy", "No Code" and "Yield". O'Brien, who knows the inner dynamics of the band better than anyone, pushed them to record live in the studio to capture the electric tension between the band members, while incorporating the band's regular keyboardist Boom Gaspar on Hammond organ and piano.
The creative process for "Lightning Bolt" was unusual and split into two separate sessions two years apart. As early as the spring of 2011, the band entered the legendary Henson Studios in Los Angeles and recorded about 14 songs, with the intention of releasing an album later that year. But then came the band's 20th anniversary celebrations (which were featured in Cameron Crowe's documentary "Pearl Jam Twenty"), world tours, and side projects by the band members: Eddie Vedder released the solo album "Ukulele Songs," Matt Cameron reunited with his parent band "Soundgarden" to record the comeback album "King Animal," and Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament released solo albums and their own projects (including a one-off reunion of the parent band "Temple of the Dog" later on).
When the members of "Pearl Jam" returned to the studio in March 2013 and listened to the material from 2011, they felt that the songs had lost their immediate relevance and that they were capable of writing deeper and more challenging material. As Jeff Ament testified, the long hiatus allowed them to "come back hungrier and distill the best album they could put out at that point in time."
The album opens with "Getaway", a rolling rock piece that begins with Ament's bass-based rhythmic build-up and Cameron's tight drums, before opening into a loose chorus in which Vedder declares freedom of thought in the face of dogmatism and religious coercion - a theme that will become the second thread of the album's opening.
Immediately after it erupts the first single from the album, "Mind Your Manners". It is a short, fast and aggressive two and a half minute hardcore-punk attack, written by Mike McCready in a deliberate attempt to recreate the wild energy of the California punk band "Dead Kennedys". The song is reminiscent in spirit of "Spin the Black Circle" from "Vitalogy", with Vedder firing sharp and biting lyrics against the hypocrisy of religious institutions and brainwashing.
After such a forceful opening, "My Father's Son" continues on a grim and rough line. The song is born from Jeff Ament's angular, edgy bass-guitar riff with unconventional chromatic chord transitions, with Soder providing a theatrical, almost strangled vocal delivery that deals with the complex genetic and emotional baggage passed down from white ancestors.
Then comes the moment when the album completely changes direction with its second and most successful single - "Sirens". The story behind this sweeping stadium ballad begins the night Mike McCready attended Roger Waters' "The Wall" tour in Los Angeles in 2012. McCready returned to his hotel room, completely emotional, and wrote the acoustic opening and melodic line in an attempt to create a song with emotional and cinematic power in the spirit of "Pink Floyd." When Eddie Vedder heard the melody combined with the sounds of ambulance sirens outside the Los Angeles studio, he wrote a raw, chilling lyric about the fear of death and the desire to hold on to love before it all ends—a mature love song for his wife Jill, enhanced by McCready's melodic, tearful guitar solo that became an instant classic in the band's live performances.
The title track, "Lightning Bolt", written by Vedder, brings back the electric energy with classic Pearl Jam dynamics: a quiet, tense acoustic verse that gradually builds and explodes into a wide-ranging rock chorus, with Matt Cameron's powerful drumming and a sweeping guitar solo that illustrates why the song was chosen to give the entire album its name.
One of the album's brightest musical gems is "Infallible", a creation by Ament Voder driven by a hypnotic, heavy bass-drum groove, wrapped in atmospheric keyboards. Lyrically, it is one of Veder's strongest political and philosophical texts of the past decade, criticizing human arrogance and the blind belief that man is immune to the collapse of ecological and social systems.
The first side of the record is closed with "Pendulum", a dark, minimalist and hypnotic piece that was born from a studio jam between Ament and Gossard back in the 2011 sessions. The song was originally written for the soundtrack of the film "Into The Wild" (which Veder composed in 2007) but remained in a drawer, and here it receives a chilling arrangement with floating keyboards and muffled percussion that create a gloomy cinematic atmosphere of a pendulum of time swinging over an abyss.
The second half of the album opens with high energy with "Swallowed Whole", a melodic, upbeat rock song that recalls the spirit of the masterpiece "Yield," and is immediately followed by "Let the Records Play" – a groovy, fun homage to 1970s blues-rock and glam. The tune was written by Stone Gossard, who also played the rough guitar solo (in contrast to the usual division of roles where McCready leads the solos), as Vedder sings about the healing power of old vinyl records by John Lee Hooker and Stevie Ray Vaughan.
It's immediately followed by "Sleeping by Myself", a song that Eddie Vedder originally recorded alone with ukulele for his 2011 solo album. Producer Brendan O'Brien heard the song and insisted that Pearl Jam record a full-band version. The result is a rich and warm folk-rock track with the addition of brass and organ, which despite the light melody deals with the loneliness within a relationship.
The two tracks that close the album provide an intimate and moving ending incomparable. The first is "Future Days", a beautiful piano and acoustic guitar ballad that Vedder wrote inspired by the loss of a close friend who died in a drowning tragedy, and his thoughts on the people left behind. The song features the lead singer of the legendary band "Heart" and one of the pillars of the Seattle scene, Ann Wilson, on heavenly backing vocals. A decade after the album's release, the song has received tremendous global resonance among a new generation of listeners, when it was chosen as the central motif song that connects the main characters in the groundbreaking video game and successful television series "The Last of Us".
The album closes with "Yellow Moon", a dreamy, slow, nocturnal ballad written by bassist Jeff Ament. With a warm, soaring guitar solo by Mike McCready that sounds like a nod to Neil Young and David Gilmour, the song closes the album with a sense of fulfillment and inner peace.
The album cover and its illustrated booklet also became a work of art in their own right: the band enlisted renowned graphic artist and skateboarder Don Pendleton, who created a unique abstract illustration in red, black, and white for each of the album's twelve songs. Pendleton's spectacular work earned "Lightning Bolt" the prestigious Grammy Award in 2015 in the Best Recording Package category.
Upon its release, "Lightning Bolt" was an impressive commercial and critical success, debuting at number one on the Billboard 200 in its first week (the band's fifth album to do so). In the test of time, "Lightning Bolt" stands as one of the most complete, diverse, and honest albums of Pearl Jam's late career, living proof that even after more than two decades of activity, Seattle's lightning still strikes with power.
For Listening: Spotify, Apple Music
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