Rating: NNN
Now that Pearl Jam are the last of the early-90s monsters of rock left standing, it’s somehow fitting that they’ve come full circle with Binaural, pitching Eddie Vedder’s tar-black ruminations against swollen, steamrolling riff rock as they did on their debut while leaving the experimental washes and collisions with Neil Young to the professionals.
There is nothing on Binaural that your average Pearl Jam fan will have any trouble digesting, and if there’s one thing producer Tchad Blake knows, apart from how to fatten his already considerable bank account, it’s how to step back and let the players guide themselves. The unconverted, however, are likely to stay that way.
