Pearl Jam -
Riot Act (2002)
If
Lightning Bolt was "listless" and
Backspacer was "jammy," then
Riot Act is "semi-dirgey." But I don't want to keep getting bogged down in comparisons, so let's get bogged down in corporate packaging instead. The photography and design layout is classic grunge imagery all the way around, including malnourished skeletal royalties who haven't seen the inside of a food pantry in the last 400 years. Inside the lyric booklet are some B&W photos of the band, as well as some out-of-focus, guitar-thrashing stills, a staple of any grunge affair.
Eh, I was just messing with you about nomo comparos, because this output is more "guttural" and honest in lyrical content, whereas
Lightning Bolt came across to me as try-hard preaching. I don't have a big essay for you to read on the matter, but I can tell the difference. And I'm three Pearl Jam albums in at this point. How much more authority do I need?
Okay now, I was messing with you again about getting back to comparisons. It's time to dig into
Riot Act.
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1) "Can't Keep" is the opening track, and it's experimental and wafty-sounding, almost trancey tbh + composition with the clear baritone Vedder, distinctly.
2) "Save You": <<>>Dirge incoming<<>>. Not really digging the drums on this one, though. But it's aight.
3) "Love Boat Captain": Sucked bad. Vedder hogs all the attention, leaving the band to sound kind of second rate.
4) "Cropduster": Vedder going one way and the band going another. Out of sync and unpolished. Get on the same page, brahs.
5) "Ghost": Regular/no impact. Has a cheesy guitar solo, but the guitar-work does get better as "Ghost" goes along, I must say.
6) "I Am Mine": This is the first song I instantly recognized out of the three albums so far. This was definitely on the radio. Well done. Memorable lyrics. Electro-acoustic vibe. This is a sound that would later be buried into the ground by a ton of post-grunge acts, but this is 2002 and we don't need to worry about that yet. Google or YouTube this if you must.
7) "Thumbing My Way": Snoozy.
8) "You Are": Yeeees. Dirge all day long. It's almost like this song had dinner with Mad Season and Mark Lanegan behind Pearl Jam's back, and it's quite a feast.
9) "Get Right": You know what makes cheesy guitar solos less cheesy? Dirge, that's what. Have I mentioned dirge yet? Vedder brings his bears as well. Not bad.
10) "Green Disease": Makes no impact.
11) "Help Help": Slow hummer that's just sort of there but with some decent riffs.
12) "Bu$hleager": Storytelling voice of Vedder overlaying some acoustic guitar waves and backing vocals, and it's pretty obvious that it's about a now-former president.
He's not a leader, he's a Texas leaguer
Swinging for the fence, got lucky with a strike
Drilling for fear makes the job simple
Born on third, thinks he got a triple
I suppose it's political w/out being annoying about it. This had to have been written not too long after the dust-up of 9/11.
13) "1/2 Full": Heavy on some blues-rock riffs to start off and then the guitarist is all over it later on with some proper dirge.
14) "Arc": One minute and five seconds of Vedder practicing a Gregorian chant or something. Quips aside, this can't be Vedder trolling because I know passion when I see or hear it, no matter the form, so it's lookup time. *type type, google google*. Time's up: yeah, I didn't think so. Apparently, it's written for nine people who died during a
Pearl Jam performance at Denmark's Roskilde Festival in 2000. There are live performances of this that give a better sense of the emotions going on here. I've been in several mosh pits myself, so I guess anything can happen. Respect.
15) "All Or None": Slow outro that I won't care about.
Final Tally: Remember how
Lightning Bolt got a bonus Vedder simply for existing? I'm not going to do that with
Riot Act. Instead, I'm going to give this album a bonus point for meaning and context. Musically,
Riot Act is dirge-lite, unpolished in a few places, experimental in others (it's supposed to be), but there are some highlights & cohesive moments to be had. Due to its experimental nature, it will take more time to digest, but this is a band being a band.
Riot Act gets 3 Eddie Vedders out of 5
