Grunge icons Pearl Jam have officially announced their 12th studio album, Dark Matter — the follow-up to 2020's experimental Gigaton — and offered up its lead single, the stuttering, swaggering title track.
The song, which finds Eddie Vedder seemingly sneaking a King Diamond shout-out in the lyrics ("Denounce the demigods/King diamond to discard/Deploy the dialog/Your word against the law"), arrived along with a spiraling, hypnotic visualizer video.
Watch and listen above.
In a recent interview with Classic Rock, Pearl Jam guitarist McCready described Dark Matter, which was produced by Andrew Watt (Ozzy Osbourne, Post Malone, Miley Cyrus, Iggy Pop), as "a lot heavier than you'd expect."
"There's the melody and energy of the first couple of records," McCready said, referencing his band's landmarks Ten and Vs. albums. "We worked with Andrew Watt, who's a younger pop producer-type guy, but he's really a rock guy at heart — I think we're his favorite band. When we were in the studio with him this past year, he really kicked our asses, got us focused, and playing, song after song. It took a long time to make Gigaton, but this new one didn't take long. Andrew was like: 'You guys take forever to make records. Let's do this, right now.'"
McCready also prepped fans for a lot more guitar pyrotechnics than in recent years. "For better or worse, you're gonna hear a lot more lead guitar from me, stuff I haven't done in a long time," he noted. "I went crazy, like with Chris Cornell and Temple of the Dog on 'Reach Down,' all those years ago. I got to do it again. Usually, the first or second takes are best. After that, I start thinking about it and it doesn't have the feel. But Andrew caught the lightning in a bottle, as they say."
Dark Matter is due out April 19th via Monkeywrench Records/Republic Records. See the album cover and tracklist below.
Dark Matter tracklist:
Scared of Fear
React, Respond
Wreckage
Dark Matter
Won't Tell
Upper Hand
Waiting for Stevie
Running
Something Special
Got to Give
Setting Sun
