Thursday, December 26, 2013

Top Ten Pearl Jam Moments of 2013, #3

COLD CONFESSION & LET IT RIDE


Mind Your Manners may go down as the first Pearl Jam song that did not leak in any appreciable form until it's official release date, but we were barely over the buzz of hearing that song for the first time when something else slipped through the cracks.

In July, the Pearl Jam Red Mosquito poster, KurtLeon, bought the community stumbled  two demos, Cold Confession and Let It Ride, that had reportedly been recorded during the sessions that led up to Pearl Jam's self-titled album.  PearlJamOnline.it lists both tracks in a session out of Studio X back in December of 2004.  That is the same session that gave us Of The Earth (which we're hoping to see on Lightning Bolt), as well as World Wide SuicideMarker [in the Sand], Crapshoot Rapture (renamed Comatose) and two other songs, Armor and 2X4, which may have been renamed or may still be in limbo.

Here's is some of what our reviewer, Stip, had to say:

Eddie is the star here [in Cold Confession], and it’s nice to have a showcase song for him. He is perfect here, barely held together—like spiderweb cracks on a pane of frosted glass. It feels real without the affectations that (for some people) mar a song like The End. The music helps understate him.

[In Let It Ride] we have a muscular, unadorned riff that gives the song a kind of purposeful purposelessness. It’s not going anywhere in particular, but it's marching to nowhere with some shit kicking determination. It plays off oddly, and (to my ears) not always successfully, with Eddie’s vocals, which seem to be moving with far less deliberation than the music
Will these songs ever be dusted off and released?  If the speed with which Pearl Jam put a stop to trading, it's definitely possible, but then again just because trading isn't allowed doesn't mean there is any intent to release (witness Ed's solo shows).

Still, we have a 2013 Christmas Single on the horizon.  Hope is not yet dead!