This record gets better and better with age, as I have had it for just over 6 years. Without naming everything on the record, I think it is all very well done. The song 'I'm Open' is a little bit of beat poetry. I really like 'Present Tense.' The words are nothing but captivating. It was an absolutely beautiful song and probably in my top 5 of all Pearl Jam. I was rather surprised that 'Off He Goes' did not find its way onto the radio some how. 'Hail, Hail' also spent some time traveling the radio waves. 'Who You Are' was on the radio for a little while.

There are no real radio gems on this record.

It has this rolling drum beat and an almost Arabic sounding guitar (Eddie denies completely that the song was influenced by the time he spent with, now sadly deceased, Pakistani singer Nusrat Fatah Ali Khan, while working on the soundtrack of 'Dead Man Walking.' Eddie says that the song was, in fact, built around an old Jack Irons drum beat) The first single 'Who You Are' is very cool. There is a feel of classic rock and maybe even some blues. Not to say that there it contains no rock, but not plagued with era-related, stereotypical rock anthems. There is a feel to this record that was not in the previous works by Eddie Vedder and the boys. This album is a major step in the evolution of Pearl Jam. But hey, it wouldn't really be Pearl Jam without some mild craziness, now would it? And, of course, there is some strange stuff. Maybe it wasn't marketed as well or something? There is easily some of Pearl Jam's best work on this record. I don't know why this record did not do as well as its predecessors. Highly recommended to music lovers with a sense of adventure, space, mood, reflection and introspection. This is an excellent, musically transcendent disc. Around The Bend is an acoustic, peaceful number to end out this spectacular disc. Musically it's dark, ambient and somewhat new age-esque. He sounds like Ed Roland of Collective Soul. Mankind is another heavy rocker, this time out, it's sung by Stone Gossard, which I rather like. Present Tense starts out slow and absorbing, then turns into a musical assault. Lukin is a 1 minute rocker with Eddie Vedder growling at super speed, which makes it hard to understand what he is saying, check out some websites to get the lyrics. Red Mosquito has a Neil Young type feel to it, which is bluesy/country-esque and heavy. Habit is a brutal rocker about drug addiction, if I'm not mistaken. Off He Goes is a slow, dark, quiet and reflective piece with some poignant lyrics. In My Tree is hard to describe actually, but it's somewhat catchy and groovy. Then it bursts into the explosive Hail, Hail, which is followed by the hypnotic, middle-eastern Who You Are, which features an elf-like choir sound brought on by the vocal overdubs.

It starts with the quiet, dark and ambient Sometimes. It's dark, moody, eerie, ambient, reflective, searching, brutal and peaceful all at the same time, which leads me to some degree to believe that this is Pearl Jams's biggest artistic statement. While I'm admittedly not the biggest Pearl Jam fan out there, my comments may seem a bit worthless to bigger fans, But.this album is a masterpiece. Much like the cover artwork, at first it seemed weird and too jumpy, but after repeated listens, it all started to fall in place. I remember getting this disc as a birthday present the year it came out.

Best slow songs by pearl jam