Pearl Jam - Pearl Jam

Pearl Jam released their (to date) only self-titled album in 2006.  It was an album that came out four years after their previous studio album, but very much 'after their moment had passed'.  And on the first few listens it really makes little impact.  Shouty songs like Life Wasted and Worldwide Suicide just show that Eddie Vedder can still shout but little else.  Parachutes, which arrives six tracks in, is a jaunty strum that sounds nothing like a Pearl Jam song.  At this point, you begin to worry for this album.

But from here on the album improves distinctly.  Unemployable is definitely Pearl Jam doing The Who but it really works, while Gone starts off all pouty and broody but turns into a big old PJ rabble rouser.  Penultimate track Come Back is a sparse soulful ballad of reaffirmation which would have been a good note to end the album on.  However the actual last song, Inside Job, is nothing like the rest of the album.  It feels like a throwback, all the way to debut album Ten.  Vedder sings "how I choose to feel is how I am", he means it, just like he sang on Black or any classic Pearl Jam ballad.  

So an album unlikely to be any Pearl Jam fan's favourite, but given time and persistence, not a bad album by any means.