Eddie Vedder
Shortly after Pearl Jam released Ten, a disillusioned twenty-something named Christopher McCandless dropped out of society, hitched cross-country and perished in the Alaskan wilderness. Now Eddie Vedder tells the young man's story on the soundtrack to Sean Penn's Into the Wild, tossing his weighty baritone onto earthy, folky tracks that temper the romance of absolute freedom with an eerie foreboding. Vedder strikes a cinematic tone on the jangly opener, “Setting Forth,” and ten more sketches that evoke days spent contemplating a vast skyline. Sleater-Kinney's Corin Tucker adds alluring harmonies to a rollicking cover of Indio's “Hard Sun,” and Vedder, free from the noise (and outrage) of his day job, disappears into the sublime beauty of the simple, banjo-plucked “No Ceiling.”
CARYN GANZ - ROLLING STONE