If grunge had any chance left of holding onto the cliff of the music industry, commercialization has squashed it within the past few years.

Kurt Cobain's likeness is plastered on the latest Guitar Hero game. Ex-Soundgarden lead singer Chris Cornell recently put out a solo album produced by pop and hip-hop hit-maker Timberland. Alice in Chains will never be able to rise from the ashes lead singer Layne Staley left behind.

And Pearl Jam, the genre's great hope, has seemingly turned its back on the counterculture, taken the hammer from The Man's hands and pounded the last nail in grunge's coffin.

Backspacer, an album exclusively available through iTunes and Target superstores, is little less than a slap in the face to everyone who grew up in the '90s watching the Seattle mavericks refuse to make music videos for MTV.

Even in the mid-2000s, the band made a conscious effort to write songs concerning environmental advocacy and governmental accountability.

This album, on the other hand, has little to say. It is almost as if frontman Eddie Vedder went "into the wild" and left his inner fire behind when he came back.

Add to it that Vedder seems to have lost touch with his pipes. The howling screams Pearl Jam fans know well on "Dissident" simply aren't there.

On the first track, "Gonna See My Friend," Vedder struggles to reach his once-unparalleled pitchy heights and even changes key after one of his screeches goes wrong toward the end of the song.

It is not just the band's principal singer and songwriter who seems to be screwing up. Other members of the band also falter.

Dual guitarists Mike McCready and Stone Gossard, the geniuses behind the band's best riffs, in "Alive," "Even Flow" and "Spin the Black Circle," are just disappointing on Backspacer.

Once the unseen driving forces of the band, the two musicians have since scaled back their volume and their tone on this album, making them sound more similar to your average high school garage band than one of the most celebrated groups of the last 20 years.

To this effect, the song "Johnny Guitar" has so much fuzz and misplaced guitar effects in various parts, one can hardly hear the music, let alone critique it.

The same problem holds true in the opening riffs of "Supersonic," in which the guitarists use bottleneck slides in poor fashion and solo in the style of The Stooges: too much power without the restraint that made them so influential in the past.

Making matters worse, the riffs are played without proficiency. There are no truly memorable solos in the

songs, and the intermittent quips of blues riffs become very old very fast.

The only bright part of the album as a rock compilation shines through on the song "Got Some," the only track in which the listener gets a glimpse of the band from yesteryear. With lyrics that could be seen as a quick jab at President Obama's continued involvement in the Middle East, drummer Matt Cameron does well to pick up the pace with some great drumming that works well with sparse but surprisingly well-conceived guitar riffs from McCready and Gossard.

If you're looking for a pure rock album, Backspacer immediately disappoints. But while the lack of good rock songs will upset fans, the album's ballads are the band's saving grace -- these are some of the best that Pearl Jam has ever done, though the effort may be a little too late.

"Just Breathe" sounds like a song left over from Vedder's writing for the Into the Wild soundtrack. In his sincere lyrics, Vedder's appreciation for those important in his life comes out unforced: "I'm a lucky man to count on both hands / The ones I love / Some folks just have one / Others they got none."

This sentiment also can be heard in "Amongst the Waves," in which listeners tap into Vedder's feelings of pure exuberance in overcoming hardship, inviting us to rise with Vedder over further adversity.

Perhaps that's why this isn't one of Pearl Jam's better albums -- one of the most pessimistic rock bands ever has become optimistic in its later years.

The band is no longer content with being the rebel but has since become too old to fight and is beginning to see less and less reasons worth fighting for.

This album may be the beginnings of a new direction for rock music. One can either embrace it or lament it, but grunge may never be coming back.

Grade: C-

Download: "Got Some," "Just Breathe," "Amongst the Waves"