17/11/03

PEARL JAM / LOST DOGS

When a track doesn’t make it onto the final version of an album, you have to assume that it was sub standard and not as good as the rest but in Pearl Jam’s case, from the evidence here this is simply not true.

This 2 CD set comprises of B’sides, rarities and previously un released songs and considering that it is basically an album of out takes form the bands entire career it has a continuity that is tantamount to the bands ability to write good songs and proves why they are the only band to survive from the Grunge era.

The lion’s share comes from the Binaural and Ten albums, (both contributing 6 tracks) and the liner notes that accompany all the tracks admit that sometimes they don’t know why these didn’t make the album. The only album that is conspicuous here is Vitaolgy, read into that what you will, there are a couple from VS, Riot Act, and No Code and one from Yield. The others are hard to find tracks but surprisingly not unknown, "Yellow Ledbetter" and "Alone" are 2 prime examples. There are some very good tracks on here and if you like PJ you will love this, "In The Moonlight" sounds a bit like Led Zeppelin, "Down" and their version of "Leaving Here" deserve to be heard.

To think that all these are tracks that didn’t make it onto the final product, most bands would kill to have tracks as good as these on their CD.

TOTAL PLAYING TIME DISC 1 = 53 + 16 TRACKS, DISC 2 = 58 mins + 14 TRACKS