There have been rumblings over the past few months that the new album from Pearl Jam could be one of the defining records of 2024. And while it’s not unusual for a band and everyone around them to declare the new stuff some of their best work ever, there was a growing buzz in music circles that this could actually be the case with Dark Matter, Pearl Jam’s 12th studio album, out April 19 via Monkeywrench and Republic.
Today (February 13), we’re given the title track, and it does nothing to squash the above sentiment. “Dark Matter,” the single, is a curt, stomp-along, shout-about-it guitar-rock track that recalls some of the band’s earlier work. It has a snarl to it, and it sounds huge.
Dark Matter, the album, is the follow-up to 2020’s Gigaton, and was produced by Andrew Watt at Rick Rubin‘s Malibu studio Shangri-La.
“In 2023, the band retreated to Shangri-La Studios in Malibu where they simply plugged in and played under the watch of producer Andrew Watt,” reads a news post on pearljam.com. “Writing and recording in a burst of inspiration, Dark Matter was born in just three weeks. As a result, Dark Matter channels the shared spirit of a group of lifelong creative confidants and brothers in one room playing as if their very lives depended on it.”
Crank it.