Pearl Jam formed in 1990, which means that this year will mark 30 years as a group (29 since their release of their first album).

Their style and creativity has put them at the forefront of the music industry for most of that, forming close friendships with some of music's most iconic performers and creating some of their own anthems along the way that have become the soundtrack to many peoples lives. Not only have they created some fantastic songs and given energetic performances around the world, they campaign and stand up for different issues giving people affected a voice by which to campaign through. 

Dance of the Clairvoyants is the first track from the new album Gigaton and marks a direction that many will not be expecting. Known as titans of the grunge era, this song has an electro dance feel at the beginning, but Eddie Veddar has a voice that is one of the most distinctive in rock and when that comes in to the mix everything is okay, it’s definitely Pearl Jam! There is a point in the first verse where he gives more punch to the lyrics and you’ll nod your head and agree that it works. The distinctive guitars, bass and drums do kick in, but with a different energy. The guitar is higher ended than normal and is playing some tricky rhythms that make ‘Dance of the Clairvoyants’ one of the most interesting songs musically I have heard this year. The chorus is catchy, it’s distinctive and the music itself is complex and uses harmonies, energy and skill that leads to a full chant of Eddie Veddar’s voice that loops towards the end and builds to a big finish. 

This is a hugely different direction for Pearl Jam, and may well be a one off, but it brings them smack back into the modern era with a song that will still appeal to the majority of the Pearl Jam’s die hard fans, but will be heard by people who have no idea what the grunge movement of the early 1990s was and they’ll like this, they’ll dance to it and you never know they might start looking at some of Pearl Jam’s back catalogue!

 Alterative rock      Grunge 

Author: Phil Arnold

Phil Arnold is a musician, producer and music reviewer from Devon, in the South West of England. Whilst not writing music reviews, Phil also writes and records under the name of Ugbrooke.