From the grunge era but not quite of it, Stone Temple Pilots really excelled most when the world of flannel was in decline, diving deeper into psychedelia and power-pop on their last three albums. Since they continued to get better after their heyday, there's reason to suspect great things in the works for the reformed band's new album, which they're currently working on with legendary producer Don Was (and Weiland's longtime collaborator friend of the site Douglas Grean on engineering duties.)

Sour Girl, from their fourth album aptly titled No. 4, shows the band sounding more like the Zombies than Pearl Jam, a form which always worked well for them.

STP is hitting the road for 24 shows with the original quartet intact. Dates after the flip.

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I don't want to get C+L in trouble with Universal Music Group by ripping the official video for "The Fixer" (they've disabled embedding) and uploading it to our servers, but you can watch it here. The song is the real star here anyway; Pearl Jam sounds like a revitalized band with something to prove on this track. The secret is that they are, perhaps.

Backspacer, the bands new album, comes out this Sunday.

Last night, Pearl Jam unveiled "Got Some", a new track from their forthcoming Backspacer album. Conan O'Brien held up the cover art beforehand, which was done by progressive artist/This Modern World creator Tom Tomorrow.

Tom broke the silence on his web site:

So, one of the things I’ve been keeping busy with over the past few months, along with finishing up the children’s book, has been working on some artwork for Pearl Jam. Had to stay quiet about it until now, and I still can’t say too much about it, but I do want to note that the image that Conan held up tonight was only part of a greater whole — it wasn’t the finished album cover. And apart from saying that working with the band has been an utterly fantastic experience, that’s probably most of what I can share at this point.

Backspacer, on track for an autumn release, will be self-released, free of restrictions from a label that might keep Pearl Jam from doing cool things like having Tom Tomorrow do their artwork. Congratulations, Tom!

A merger is expected between Ticketmaster and LiveNation. Commemorate it in advance with this performance of "Immortality" from first show of Pearl Jam's 1995 tour, during which the band boycotted Ticketmaster in protest of the service charges they tacked onto ticket prices.