For the minority that doesn't worship at the Temple of Vedder, Pearl Jam's latest album Yield yields unexpected fruit, although it doesn't quite go far enough pushing the envelope. From the affected "1-2-3-4" court that begins Brain of J, Yield's raw, punkish opener, it's clean we're far from the sprawling, failed faux-world-beat experiment of Pearl Jam's last effort, No Code. Instead, Do the Evolution finds Eddie reining in his I-wanna-be-Nusret-Fateh-Ali-Khan tendencies to howl like Iggy over a chicken-scratch skronk guitar riff. Push Me, Pull Me, meanwhile, merges Mike Watt/Frank Zappa-style spoken-word absurdity with arena bluster.

Indeed, Yield's forays into uncharted waters are admirable for a band thats started as a Seventies hard-rock retread with a Nineties grunge spin (those roots poke out in Given to Fly's shameless copy of Led Zeppelin's Going To California, though). Sadly, Pearl Jam's worst tendencies -- tunelessness, ham-fisted melodies, sludgy dynamics, Vedder's hobbled poesy that's barely worthy of a high-school literary magazine (epitomized by Wish List's under-fed lyrics) -- take over by the end. Ultimately, what's most compelling about Yield is its tightrope walk between exploration and mediocrity, which evokes Pearl Jam's real desire to transcend expectations and surprise. It's an impressive trait for a band that could easily afford to rest on its laurels. 1