Pearl Jam document an environmental apocalypse and excoriate Donald Trump on their new song, “Quick Escape.” The track will appear on the band’s upcoming album, Gigaton, which arrives this Friday, March 27th.
“Quick Escape” is a delirious hard-rocker complete with heavy drums, screeching guitars, and a pile-driver of a bass line. Eddie Vedder presides over the controlled chaos with a voice that crackles with distortion as he narrates a sci-fi story about a devastated planet — “The lengths we had to go to then/To find a place Trump hadn’t fucked up yet” — that ends with humanity taking a bitter one-way flight to start life again on Mars.
To accompany the new song, Pearl Jam also unveiled a Space Invaders-esque game that allows players to pilot a spaceship as one of the members of Pearl Jam and take on a horde of alien spaceships.
“Quick Escape” marks the third offering from Gigaton, following “Dance of the Clairvoyants” and “Superblood Wolfmoon.” Gigaton is Pearl Jam’s 11th album and the first of all-new material since 2013’s Lightning Bolt.
Pearl Jam were supposed to preview Gigaton Thursday, March 25th, with a special one-night-only audio-visual event in movie theaters around the country, but that has been postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic. The band also called off its North American tour dates in support of the album, but plans to reschedule them at a later date.
For those in need of a quick Pearl Jam fix, though, the band recently opened a hotline (585-20-PEARL) that fans can call for the chance to hear a preview of additional songs from Gigaton.
