(Megaforce)
Perhaps if it was 1993 the mere mention of being a Pearl Jam side project might be enough to garner attention. Unfortunately for Wellwater Conspiracy, it happens to be 2003 and most Generation Xers have shaved off their goatees and traded in their job at Starbucks for a corporate office.
However, , the fourth album from the Seattle \supergroup"" headed by Pearl Jam drummer Matt Cameron (formerly of Soundgarden) does not try to rekindle grunge nostalgia. Instead, it relies heavily on psychedelic rock in the vein of The Byrds and other such '60s counterculture purveyors.??
The album starts off with the satisfying, garage-rock tinged ""Wimple Witch"" before segueing into ""Galaxy 265,"" a likable soundalike of The Turtles' hit ""Happy Together.""??
Just as the album begins to gain momentum, it is inexplicably halted by the entirely unnecessary filler track ""Rebirth.""??The downtempo techno of the track is meant to come across as Kid A era Radiohead, but instead sounds like something that anyone with a pirated copy of Acid Pro could accomplish in a few hours. Adding insult to injury is an uninspired cover of Thunderclap Newman's ""Something in the Air,"" and the instrumental ""Sullen Glacier"" that sounds like a Pearl Jam cast-off that Eddie was too lazy to put lyrics to. However, Wellwater Conspiracy rights itself with more solid tunes before finally drifting off into ""Dresden Overture"" with its dark industrial beat.
In the current musical climate there is a fine line between experimentation and excess. With record sales slumping and the turmoil over file sharing, artists cannot afford to falter through an abundance of unnecessary material.??Of course, Wellwater Conspiracy most likely did not record this album with the intent to please critics or sell a million copies, but rather to fulfill creative urges not expressed in the members' day jobs.??
