Pearl Jam - Binaural

Binaural is a schizophrenic disc with a few masterworks and all kinds of suckage. The album is best remembered for two tracks that are featured on Pearl Jam’s greatest hits record, Rearviewmirror. “Light Years” and “Nothing as it Seems” are both haunting and heartfelt odes fully deserving of their stalwart reputation. The latter is, in my mind, one of the very best examples I’ve ever heard of the benefit of production to mood. There are other, lesser standouts on the album too. “Insignificance” and its dirtier, grittier little brother “Grievance” are extremely passionate, relatable, and inspiring. Two other tracks, “Thin Air” and “Rival” do not attain greatness, but are quite interesting pieces, containing odd rhythms, chords, and ambiance (though “Rival” can be criticized as gimmicky and lacking in subtlety, as “Deep” was on Ten and “Leash” was on Vs). But there are several tracks on Binaural that are just god-awful. And it starts right away. The first three songs on the record, taken together, comprise a sonic definition of the word “clusterfuck.” All three are marred by incomprehensible, badly mixed guitar lines and overcrowded production, and remind me not of one of the most talented bands of my generation, but of the shittiest of the shitty punk bands in my hometown. To describe the trio in the critical cliché of smug word plays, “Breakerfall” goes splat, “God’s Dice” comes up snake-eyes, and “Evacuation” is downright diuretic. Pearl Jam seems to be enamored by experimenting with punk styles on this album, which is of course their musical right. But as a punk band, Pearl Jam is below average if this CD is any indication.

But as I said, there are all kinds of suckage on this album. Not only do you have fast-paced, incoherent, overcrowded messes. There are also the slow, boring, and pointless tracks on the second half of the album. “Of the Girl” sounds like a butchered cover of a sixties flower-power band, “Sleight of Hand” is a piss-poor impersonation of Tool with no flow, and “Parting Ways” is a lazy composition with a stolen intro, a shitty breakdown, and a broken tape hidden four minutes after the track just to waste the listener’s time. It’s as if the tape is put there by the band to tell the listener that yes, they realize the album sucks, and it represents a creative regression by the band. Perhaps the breaking tape and the shitty punk songs and the stupid slow songs with no flow are meant to illustrate a frazzled psyche that cannot fit the pieces of reality together anymore. That would be a really good and appropriate allegory to excuse the album, which is for the most part a dissonant mess of ill-conceived experimentation. But Pearl Jam illustrated the same fractured psyche a hell of a lot more pleasantly on their little-known and somewhat more mainstream debut called Ten. Tracks four through seven save Binaural from being a total loss, but a band with the talent level of Pearl Jam should not be excused for surrounding a few good tracks with a bunch of filth like most other bands do. Just hold on to Rearviewmirror for the two best songs and save your money.

RATING: 2 OUT OF 5 STARS