Lightning Bolt

Lightning Bolt is the tenth studio album by the American rock band Pearl Jam. Produced by long-time Pearl Jam collaborator Brendan O'Brien, the album was released in the United States on October 15, 2013, through the band's own Monkeywrench Records, with Republic Records handling the international release one day earlier.

The band began composing new songs in 2011, the album's first recording sessions took place in early 2012 before the musicians decided to take a break. As all band members got into side projects afterwards, work on Lightning Bolt only resumed in March 2013. The music for Lightning Bolt has a harder rock sound with longer songs in contrast to predecessor Backspacer (2009), and the lyrics convey singer Eddie Vedder's feelings on aging and mortality.

Preceded by a promotional campaign focusing on Pearl Jam's website and social network profiles and two moderately successful singles, "Mind Your Manners" and "Sirens", Lightning Bolt was well received by critics, who considered the album an effective return to the band's old sound, and topped the charts in the United States, Canada, and Australia.

Lightning Bolt was met with generally positive reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 73, based on 33 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic gave the album four out of five stars, stating that the band seemed more settled and comfortable while "accentuating the big riffs and bigger emotions, crafting songs without a worry as to whether they're hip or not and, most importantly, enjoying the deep-rooted, nervy arena rock that is uniquely their own."

Jim Farber of the New York Daily News gave the album four out of five stars, commenting that while "some key sounds and sensibilities" and uplifting lyrics were unlike Pearl Jam's earlier style, the music in Lightning Bolt marked a return to the "thick-bottomed rhythms, hard-nosed guitars and darkened tone of classic Pearl Jam" compared to predecessor Backspacer.

Cole Waterman of PopMatters gave the album an eight out of ten, praising "Pearl Jam thriving in their persona, building on what worked in the past without trying to copy it while adding new elements to the mix" and feeling that despite "the closing songs get[ting] monotonous in their united balladry", "Future Days" was a good album closer, comparing it to Tom Waits.

This article uses material from the Wikipedia page dedicated to this album. No copyright infringement is intended.