Neil Young uses
Pearl Jam on
Mirror Ball much as he has used his perennial backup band
Crazy Horse, looking for feel and spontaneity. At the start of the record, he can be heard instructing them: "No tuning, nothing," and the take of "I'm the Ocean" is an obvious run-through that became a master take. But
Pearl Jam is not
Crazy Horse; in place of the latter's primitive, non-swinging sound, the former boasts spirited rhythms and dense guitar interplay that
Young makes excellent use of in a series of songs built out of simple, melodic riffs. Those songs come mostly in pairs: "Song X" and "Act of Love," the first two tracks, both seem to be about abortion, especially in its religious aspect, each containing a reference to "the holy war"; "What Happened Yesterday" and "Fallen Angel" are song fragments on which
Young plays the pump organ; and "Downtown" and "Peace and Love" find
Young addressing the musical and philosophical concerns of hippies and contain name-checks of
Jimi Hendrix,
John Lennon, and
Led Zeppelin. The songs also share highly imagistic lyrics that are allusive and frequently just obscure. At their best, notably on "I'm the Ocean" and "Scenery," they provide intriguing portraits of the artist -- "People my age/They don't do the things I do,"
Young sings in "Ocean" -- while "Scenery" is one of his bitter denunciations of celebrity. Such subject matter is not new for
Young, and
Mirror Ball is typically uneven. But it is always interesting musically, suggesting that he has found another catch-up that works. Probably due to the commercial power of
Pearl Jam, the album became
Young's highest-charting record since
Harvest 23 years earlier, though it had a relatively short chart life. ~ William Ruhlmann