Crazily, it has been almost three
years to the day since I last reviewed an album by this next band. This is a
bummer, because I love these guys.
Disc 805 is….No Code
Artist: Pearl Jam
Year of Release: 1996
What’s up with the Cover? A whole lot of nothing. As in, a
ton of images evoking mouths and eyes and noses (or that are actually mouths
and eyes and noses) thrown into a jumble. I know the album is called “No Code” so
maybe that’s the point. If this cover actually has a code I wouldn’t know,
because it is so artistically uninspiring I could care less to decipher it.
How I Came To Know It: I had taken a break from Pearl
Jam but when “Riot Act” came out in 2002 I had a resurgence of interest. I then
realized I had missed three albums between it and 1994’s “Vitalogy.” “No Code”
was one of those albums.
How It Stacks Up: I have 11 Pearl Jam albums, which is all of
them. Of the 11 I like “No Code” plenty but it is not my favourite. I’ll put it
8th.
Ratings: 3 stars
Years ago I worked with a woman who was a figure
skater and a Pearl Jam fan. She was a great coworker and a lot of other cool
things besides but for the sake of brevity, let’s stick with the skating and
the music.
When I found these facts out I remarked (in my
opinionated manner) that figure skating was OK by me, but I didn’t think much
of ice dancing, and as far as Pearl Jam went I liked pretty much everything
they’d ever done with the exception of “No Code” and “Binaural.” Turns out she was an ice dancer, and those albums happened
to be her two favourites. Oops.
Today I was pleasantly surprised at how much I
enjoyed “No Code.” I’ll take back most of the unkind things I said about it
fifteen years ago. My vote’s still out on “Binaural.” As for ice dancing, the
less said the better.
Back to “No Code,” which is Pearl Jam’s follow up to
“Vitalogy” and suffers from some of the same lack of direction on that record.
It’s clear the band is trying to expand their sound,
and for the most part I enjoyed the effort. In particular, the use of harmonica
on “Smile” was a nice folksy touch to
a grunge rock song. It is clear the boys had taken some notes while hanging out
with Neil Young, and “Smile” is the
kind of song he would have released at his heavier moments. This song is a wall
of rock n’ roll, but it never loses its soaring melody. This is a lesson for
heavier bands the world over: you don’t have to bury all the elements that make
your song pretty just because you also want to make it loud.
My favourite song on the record is “Off He Goes” which is a soft song featuring
Vedder crooning gently and a guitar strum that could have been a folk song in another
life. I’m not sure what “Off He Goes”
is about. Sometimes I think it is mental illness or anxiety, sometimes I think
it’s about addiction and sometimes it just feels like someone who takes on more
than they should and doesn’t know how to take a breath and relax. The decision
to sing the song from the perspective of a close friend who comes off chill and
relaxed helps underscore the anxiousness of the song’s subject. It is a smart
and not immediately obvious musical choice.
Also great is “Present
Tense” which is a slow builder of a song which is the sign of some of their
later work on 2002’s “Riot Act.” It is a moody track that perfectly matches
Eddie Vedder’s vibrato with a reverbing guitar, and puts both sounds in a very
empty echo-filled production that makes the song’s message thrum with
importance. That message is pretty simple:
"You can spend your time
alone, re-digesting past regrets
Or you can come to terms and
realize
You're the only one who can't
forgive yourself
Makes much more sense
To live in the present
tense"
As the Bourbon Tabernacle Choir would say, “make amends with yourself.” I also enjoy
that the song’s final two minutes or so, which is a Who-like instrumental jam.
This artful musical exit lets the earlier message soak in the juice of your
lizard brain for a while before moving you along to the album’s next track.
“Mankind”
feels like Pearl Jam feel like they’re channeling the Ramones and “Around the Bend” feels like a precursor
to Vedder’s recent interest in Hawaiian music. They even do a spoken word
poetry song about how the world loses its magic as we grow to adulthood (“I’m Open”). This stuff mostly works,
although didn’t blow me away like I wanted it to.
One last negative note on the art direction, which
in addition to having a stupid and pretentious cover has the song lyrics
printed on a bunch of individual polaroid prints. These prints are stuffed where
a perfectly useful CD booklet should be. I assume this is supposed to be an
interesting way to package the album, but I found it annoying. Moreover the
lyrics follow a time-honoured Pearl Jam tradition of being hand-written and
hard to read. If you’re going to make it that hard to read, why include it at
all?
Anyway, “No Code” is a good album by one of my
favourite bands. It is way better than ice dancing, and the only reason it didn’t
rate any higher is because I like all their work so much there was no room to
move it any higher in the ranking.
Best
tracks: Who You Are, Smile, Off He Goes, Present Tense
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