Two years after their last album in collaboration with Epic Records, Pearl Jam come back into the scene lights. Their new self-titled album is due to be released on May 2nd.

Coming from the Seattle-generation of the beginning of the past decade, Pearl Jam seem to have reached the peek-point of their career. Maturity hit Eddie Vedder & co too, but in the best possible way. "You get growing pains when you get taller," Eddie said, "but we got them when we were trying to shrink". So as long as they keep singing, things go perfectly fine. If they tried to come to an end, this would have meant agreeing to a musical compromise.

And the one thing Pearl Jam refused since "Ten", their debut album released in 1991, in the top era of the grunge-Seattle-based movement, were compromises regarding music. For this reason they managed to avoid being swallowed by show biz, and remained until today an "independent" rock band. No mass popularity, but at least they can keep their musical integrity. Almost no interviews, very little media interaction in general, a few videos, little endorsement for the top issues in the media. And still, with all this "lack of …", Pearl Jam keep on composing and singing and manage to stay in line with all other studio-pets, label-pets, fans-pets, etc. when it comes to recognition.

Their 8th album, "Pearl Jam", is a musical story, the story of the post-September 11th world. Narrators and characters help building up a whole story out of the 13 tracks. The tracks themselves rock, big time! So all you need to do now is wait the first days of May. Until then, you can listen to "World Wide Suicide", the first song of the album, on the band's official website.