Pearl Jam first previewed their forthcoming studio album Dark Matter in mid-February, sharing the LP’s title track as its lead single. A second look inside their 12th record arrived in late March when the band dropped “Running.” Now, with Dark Matter set to arrive on Friday, April 19, Pearl Jam are offering one last pre-release single: the return-to-form “Wreckage.”
“That one probably has the biggest build for me personally, in terms of hearing it at first and thinking, it’s kind of an Ed song. I wasn’t quite aware of its potency until later,” guitarist Stone Gossard shared in a statement. “Andrew [Watt] encouraged me to play this little harmonic, acoustic part almost like a Cure melody. I’ve been playing along with the song to relearn it and I’m really looking forward to playing it live. It’s a really powerful lyric and I think we did a really great job of taking something and really pushing it to its limit.”
“Combing through the wreckage, pouring through the sane / Surrounded by the remnants, what we could and couldn’t have / Raking through the ashes falling through my hands / Charcoal on the faces in the burned up photographs,” Eddie Vedder sings on the track.
In a review of Dark Matter, Rolling Stone‘s John Lonsdale highlighted “Wreckage” as an album standout, writing: “Dark Matter shines brightest in its most restrained moments. Take the heartbreaking highlight “Wreckage,” a laid-back stunner complete with empathetic, Springsteen-inspired vocals, and lyrics that seem to be about holding on to a fading relationship.”
Andrew Watt, who produced the album, recently shared similar praise for the single in an interview with Rolling Stone. “That’s a really special song,” he shared. “If you’re a Pearl Jam fan, and you love Eddie Vedder, it’s everything you could hope for when you sit down to listen to Eddie singing at you. He’s absolutely singing his heart out, and giving you lines that feel like you’ve had them with you your whole life.”
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