Despite what you may have read, Vinyl never truly died out. Rather, it went underground and lived quietly amongst music fans who preferred the organic sound and super-sized artwork that the format offered. Nonetheless, it is true to say that Vinyl, as a mass commercial proposition, ceased to be relevant towards the end of the nineties. Certain bands, however, did their level best to keep the format alive and three releases, in particular, have stood out as particularly desirable examples – Nine Inch Nails’ ‘The Fragile’, Smashing Pumpkins’ ‘Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness’ and Pearl Jam’s ‘No Code’. Of these releases, ‘Mellon Collie…’ got a ludicrously lavish (and with a ludicrously lavish price tag to match) reissue, ‘The Fragile’ remains depressingly elusive (unless you want to shell out the equivalent of a mortgage to track down an original copy) and ‘No Code’, much bootlegged over the years, has finally reappeared and with all its glorious original packaging intact. Long considered vinyl connoisseurs, Pearl Jam not only championed vinyl as a format, they also dedicated songs to it (‘spin the black circle’) and insisted that all their albums post ‘Vs’ receive vinyl-style packaging, just in case the format really did disappear.
Of the Pearl Jam catalogue, two releases are particularly crucial – the off-beat ‘Vitalogy’ and the wonderfully undervalued ‘no code’. The former was the sound of a band distancing themselves from the commercial side-show their band was threatening to become in the wake of the runaway success of ‘ten’, the latter is the sound of a band artistically flexing their muscles to truly take on board all the influences that had inspired them over the years. Here you’ll find trashy garage rock (‘Lukin’), Neil Young worship (‘smile’) and the band at their most tender and open (‘present tense’) and yet, across the album is a sense of coherence that was overlooked at the time of the original release and has never been truly appreciated since. Celebrating its twentieth anniversary, the album is back in print and, amazingly, Pearl Jam (and their label) have opted to repress it exactly as it was, in an over-sized gatefold sleeve with giant polaroid packaging all fully intact. It is a wonderfully tangible thing and the fan boy in me came out to play the second I saw the giant spine and opened up the sleeve to reveal the giant picture of the band in their rehearsal room. Fully remastered by Bob Ludwig on 150 gm vinyl, the album sounds absolutely fantastic and the pressing is whisper quiet throughout, a most important fact when you consider the dynamic range of the album. In contrast to an [ahem] unofficial copy that I picked up a few years back (on avocado vinyl no less), it sounds amazing and songs like ‘Red mosquito’ sound even richer and warmer than I remember from the day when I first bought the album on CD all those years ago.
Kicking off with ‘sometimes’, Pearl Jam wrong foot the listener from the off with a whimsical piece of music that barely raises itself above a whisper. Meek and mild, it does little to prepare the listener for the explosive rush of ‘hail, hail’, a track that sees Pearl Jam at their frenzied best. A hard-hitting rocker, ‘Hail, hail’ remains a live staple in the band’s set today and it’s pleasing to note that the surge of the song is captured perfectly on the vinyl which observes the dynamic shift perfectly. Next up is the beautifully inventive rhythmic heft of ‘who you are’, a reminder of the talent possessed by Jack Irons who, sadly left the band following ‘Yield’. A giant, arena-filling song that sounds for all the world like it has no business going anywhere near an arena, it is a potent reminder that Pearl jam remain a remarkably counter-intuitive force in music no matter how much corporate executives would love to break the art of song-writing down into some neat formulae. The sweetly distracting ‘in my tree’ (another track that is given life by Irons’ masterly percussion)leads into one of the album’s many highlights – the glorious Neil Young tribute that is ‘smile’ – a song that not only captures the master’s guitar tone with remarkable accuracy, but which also captures one of Eddie’s great, unsung vocal takes. The first side ends with the heart-breaking ‘off he goes’, a track that sees Eddie Vedder delivering a poignant take on the imperfections of friendship. Like so many Pearl Jam songs, ‘off he goes’ is a raw and honest piece of writing to which people can relate and it is that quality that dominates not just the track, but the album.
The second side of the album (and such is the level of invention on offer that I still find is surprising that it is crammed only into two sides of vinyl), opens with the blistering and self-explanatory ‘habit’ before drifting into the dreamy, psychedelic ‘red mosquito’, a meditation on food poisoning wrapped up in the metaphor of being trapped in a room with the titular insect. Another garage blast emerges in the form of ‘Lukin’, named for Mudhoney’s ‘Matt Lukin’ but detailing, at least in part, Eddie’s harrowing experiences with a stalker. Stunningly potent, it disperses like mist in the morning breeze in the face of the beautiful ‘present tense’, a track that contains the still-relevant line “life makes much more sense / when you live in the present tense”. ‘Mankind’ is a rare thing indeed with Stone Gossard contributing both lyrics and lead vocal to the track and proving himself in possession of a fine voice in the process. A song with a strong sixties feel, ‘Mankind’ has a fantastic break down that sees the band draw out the progressive aspects that would manifest themselves much more freely on ‘Binaural’ before heading even further into avant-garde territory on the spoken word, cryptic monologue of ‘I’m open’. The album ends with ‘around the bend’, a sweet lullaby, written by Vedder, for Jack Irons’ young son. It’s a sweet ending to an album that encompasses a wide range of emotions and an aching nostalgia for more innocent times. An unappreciated sentiment at the time, as the world seems to get ever darker, No Code’s sweetness shines ever brighter and perhaps it’s time that fans and critics alike re-evaluate an album that has grown in stature since its inception twenty years ago.
‘No code’ was, by the band’s own admission, conceived in troubled times. Well-publicised spats with ticketmaster, the continuing fallout from the death of Kurt Cobain (which had sent shockwaves through the Seattle community just two years ago and was continuing to resonate) and inner-band turmoil (largely soothed by Irons) all played their part, and yet, listening at some distance, it’s amazing how well the music flows. Split into sides, rather than played as a single disc, the track order makes a great deal of sense, and the band deftly dispersed the heavy rockers so as not to front load the album and then leave the more experimental material till the end. Highlights include ‘Mankind’ with its blistering breakdown, the lysergic rush of ‘Hail, hail’ emerging out of ‘sometimes’ and the gorgeous ‘smile’ whist the two key ballads, ‘present tense’ and ‘off he goes’ are as strong as anything the band ever produced. This fantastic vinyl pressing is a gift to fans who have long waited for the release to come back into print and a perfect opportunity to re-evaluate an underappreciated effort in this very special band’s lengthy canon. 10
