But like the quintet's latest effort, Ten is strongest in the center. If nothing else on the album suggests the band would be relevant 15 years on, the mid-disc pairing of "Black" and "Jeremy" makes two strong cases for Pearl Jam's enduring appeal. The back-to-back brilliance is almost too much; without a buffer, the intensity of one blunts the impact of the other. On "Black," Vedder sets aside his convoluted parental fantasies for a direct appeal to a lost love. Dwarfed by dramatic piano, he comes off as smaller and more empathetic. He returns to family dysfunction on "Jeremy," but guitarists Mike McCready and Stone Gossard steer the revenge fantasy to a chiming, chilling conclusion. Until schools offer a workable plan for making the jocks pay—pep-rally whippings, maybe, or dunking booths filled with nerd piss instead of water—listening and relistening to the final, thrilling seconds of "Jeremy" will have to suffice.