Riot Act

1	Cant Keep 3:39
2	Save You 3:50
3	Love Boat Captain 4:36
4	Cropduster 3:51
5	Ghost 3:15
6	I Am Mine 3:35
7	Thumbing My Way 4:10
8	You Are 4:30
9	Get Right 2:38
10	Green Disease 2:41
11	Help Help 3:35
12	Bushleaguer 3:57
13	1/2 Full 4:10
14	Arc 1:05
15	All or None 4:37

Barnes & Noble

Okay, so Pearl Jam fans haven't exactly been left wanting for listening material in the three years since the band's last studio album, Binaural -- what with 70 or so band-sanctioned "bootlegs" to choose from -- but their hunger for new songs is another matter. Answering the call with Riot Act, the band's eighth studio release, Eddie Vedder seems to be pulled in a few different directions at once, recalling the band's nascence in the grunge scene in the brontosaurus stomp of "Save You" and their immersion in the world of Neil Young on the wispy-but-wired "Can't Keep." As ever, Vedder can't help but tilt at windmills, but as the by-the-numbers "Bushleaguer" (about you-know-who) proves, he's not the cleverest of social commentators. Far better are the songs on which he looks inward: The waltz-time "I Am Mine" sets its tale of iconoclastic pride against a woozy, sea-chanty backdrop, while "Get Right" -- probably as close as the band will ever come to donning the cloak of electronica -- brings things down to an emotional level that's likely to, well, bring things down. Then again, that's always been one of Pearl Jam's strong suits: Here, the darkness is heightened by some particularly stormy playing on the part of Stone Gossard and Mike McCready, particularly on "Green Disease" and "1/2 Full," but proves just as compelling even in the quietest moments. Riot Act may not offer the immediacy -- or the anthemic heroics -- of the band's early days, but it paints a picture of Pearl Jam as heirs to rock's blue-collar mantle: smart, sinewy, and, above all, unflaggingly sincere. David Sprague

All Music Guide

In some ways, Riot Act is the album that Pearl Jam has been wanting to make since Vitalogy -- a muscular art rock record, one that still hits hard but that is filled with ragged edges and odd detours. Vitalogy found the band sketching out their ideas for their brand of artsy rock, separating bracing hard rock and experimentalism throughout that fascinating album, and since then they bounced between those two extremes: indulging themselves on No Code, over-compensating with the streamlined Yield. Here, they manage to seamlessly blend the two impulses together in a restless, passionate record that delivers musically and emotionally. If it doesn't announce itself as a comeback or a great step forward, it's because the changes are subtle -- it's a process of their post-Vitalogy sound finally gelling, not making an artistic breakthrough. Given the appealing but haphazard nature of their late-'90s work, it's quite satisfying to have a Pearl Jam album play as strongly as Riot Act, and again some credit must be given to drummer Matt Cameron. He enlivened 2000's Binaural, but his forceful drumming gives the weirder songs and ambitions support and urgency. Also, the production is the best in nearly a decade -- a warm, burnished sound filled with details that enhance the basic song instead of overwhelming them (in other words, it's not No Code, nor is it the Spartan Yield). Again, these are subtle shifts in sound, but they are notable and, given several plays, this does indeed seem like the richest record Pearl Jam has made in a long time. Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Spin Magazine

Pearl Jam's seventh studio album balances emotive bombast with a taut, sweaty hard-rock attack. (7) Christian Hoard