Pearl Jam, however, have always been bursting out. Lumped in with the grunge pack, they never belonged. Their virtues - a stylistic range from metal to funk, blazing musicianship, a singer with golden pipes - are all almost classical, not primitive, ones; their rage mirrors that of peers-rivals (Nirvana, Soundgarden), but it comes clean of pique or self-pity. Instead, theirs is a kind of romantic fury, Vedder bellowing like a noble savage, Stone Gossard's and Mike McCready's a Valhalla of sound.

Vitalogy lifts them higher into their rare aerie. Thunderous rock ("Last Exit," "Spin the Black Circle"), mythic allusions ("Tremor Christ," "Satan's Bed") and laments of a naked beauty ("Better Man," "Nothingman") reveal a fiercely idiosyncratic vision. Even when this band missteps ("Stupid Mop," an unbearable experiment), it moves with giant strides.