Unlike the last few Pearl Jam albums, Dark Matter came attached to some hype: bassist Jeff Ament and guitarist Mike McCready in particular, enthused about the songwriting. Eddie Vedder worked with producer Andrew Watt on Vedder’s 2022 solo album Earthling and recruited him to work on Dark Matter; Watt, for his part, encouraged the band members to consider collaborating on the songwriting, instead of the recent model of each member bringing in finished demos.
This was an approach the band hadn’t taken since Vitalogy way back in 1994, and the joy of working together as a band again in the studio shines through in the music. Some media outlets have likened this to the band’s first three records—the ones that made their name, the ones that landed them in the Rock Hall of Fame—but that’s a lazy comparison that music writers make with every new PJ record.
I’ll grant you that the inspiration for the harder numbers seems to come from 
Vs., but every Jam record has hard, punchy numbers on it. To me, this follows the template of the underrated Binaural, with a couple of searing rock songs to open the album (“Scared Of Fear” and “React, Respond”), a slower number (“Wreckage”), a couple anthemic numbers and maybe an experimental track or two. In short, it’s everything you want from a Jam album, which was kind of the point this time around.
McCready, in particular, gets more guitar solos here than he has in a long while, and it’s a joy to hear him rip on the title track and “Running,” a two-minute rush of nervy energy with each band member trying to keep up with the other. Slower numbers like “Won’t Tell” and “Upper Hand” sound similar to the slower numbers on Lightning Bolt or Gigaton and won’t really stick with the listener.
The best of these is “Something Special,” a lovely ode from a father to his daughters: “Cause my heart, it aches and breaks / But I believe in you, it’s the truth / Should this life knock you down … Bet on yourself, your number’s oh so special / And when it gets fucked up, you need a helping hand / Do it yourself, you’re not the type to need a man / But if you find one, he better know you’re damn special.” Vedder on the porch with a shotgun? That tracks. The dude turns 60 this year, after all.
Also of note is “Waiting For Stevie,” the song that sound the most like a midtempo ’90s alt-rock anthem; you don’t think it will be special, but it ends up swelling and enveloping the listener, Vedder’s wordless vocals and McCready’s heroics closing the number like the best songs off Ten. This, along with most everything else here, will sound great in concert.
Pretty much every Pearl Jam album has some sort of weird detours, and that facet is missing off Dark Matter; only the spacey “Upper Hand” (Pink Floyd vibes here) and the end of “Stevie” mark a departure, but experimentation is not the point. Rocking out as a band again is the point, and with continued listens the album grows on the listener. Prior albums all had some good songs, of course, but this is probably the group’s best unified album—and easily its most exciting—since Backspacer, and maybe even Binaural.