Pearl Jam - No Code CDs • Vinyl Records • LPs • Music Albums

overload – a quadro-phrenic splatter of fuzz-box bedlam; sober acoustic contemplation; bumpy, twitchy pop; and, in the tidal rumble of "Present Tense," compelling emotional interrogation. It all works, too, as snapshot shocks of Pearl Jam's depth of energy and mood (the mad surge of "Lukin"; Vedder's closing bedtime ballad "Around the Bend"), and as an impulsive, messy whole – kind of like life itself, really. "Off He Goes" may be as close, and as pointed, as Vedder has ever come to addressing the image – manufactured, unwarranted or otherwise – that now follows him around like a bad odor: "I wonder about his insides/It's like his thoughts are too big for his size." Yet the physical and argumentative charge of No Code may be best summarized in the way Vedder sings the chorus of "I'm Open," intoning the words in a chesty, enraptured way over and over again: "I'm open, I'm open, I'm open...." Believe the music, even if you don't buy the rest of it. (RS 750/751)

DAVID FRICKE