Consider Pearl Jam in 1994. What kind of music do you make if you find yourselves to be the lone kings of the most precarious, queasy, chaotic year of rock in decades, eyes glued to your every action like you're caged birds in a shoddy mine that's just claimed another life?

On Vitalogy, Pearl Jam made a precarious, uneasy and absolutely urgent collection of songs about the twists and turns life takes; the survival instinct as it plays out in real, every day living. In the process, they turned a corner themselves: their musical scope redefined and broadened, they became suddenly capable of longevity and musical variety. They learned how to survive. Vitalogy, not coincidentally, means "the study of being alive."

Peace of mind, happiness and fullfillment - the necessary components of a good life - all depend on being able to win out over temptation, and a lot of Vitalogy chronicles that entropic cycle. This is Ed (no longer Eddie) Vedder slipping seamlessly into alter-egos and struggling to resist apathy, adultery and taking the easier way out. The Vedder of Pearl Jam's 1993 album Vs. rhetorically sulked, "how much difference does it make?" None at all, he seemed to imply. But with Vitalogy, his disembodied narrator of "Tremor Christ" "take[s his] time, not his life."

"I always want to give in," he admits in "Satan's Bed," but still, he's "never slept" in the bad man's bed. These characters all have mastery over self, but the high road seems like a stifling, solitary course justified only by the reasonable assumption that giving in would be much, much worse. In other words, what if you do everything right and you're still not happy, fullfilled or at peace?

That tension is indelible. It winds its way through the jumbled, proto-jazz rave-up that initiates opener "Last Exit", through bassist Jeff Ament and rhythm guitarist Stone Gossard's nightmarish carnival groove on 'Pry, To." (play it backwards and find out who the titular "P.T." is), and Vedder's shrieking fire-alarm accordian and paranoid monotone in "Bugs." As much as Vedder's lyrics speak to this malaise, so do his bandmates complete the expression with music that, as the old cliche goes, seems to be made of clear voices itself. "Immortality," an elegiac blues jam, articulates a contemplation of suicide in the face of fame (Vedder could be talking about himself, Cobain or none of the above), with haunting, poetic lines such as "Truants move on / cannot stay long / some die just to live." But lead guitarist Mike McCready's acoustic solo (which pits heavy rhythms against lighter arpeggios from farther up the fretboard) illustrates the pro and con, the life and death, the yes and no, almost as well as the actual words.

A lot has been made of the impact of Cobain's suicide on the making of Vitalogy, but the more difficult truth is that most of these songs came into existence well before the Nirvana frontman was found dead on April 8, 1994. "Better Man," which has somehow since become an anthem for couples who aren't listening to the words, has been around, unreleased since Vedder was in his late teens. "Immortality," which seems so obviously to be about Cobain, actually predates his suicide (albeit with different, less scrutable lyrics). In fact, nine of the 14 tracks were premiered during the late '93/early '94 Vs. tour.

These life studies seem to encompass a duality. Number one, they are independent entities containing poetic truisms about being alive: how pure love is constantly in danger of being tainted ("Satan's Bed," with it's hammering, mantra-chorus "Already in love! Already in love!"), how sometimes it is your own damn fault ("Nothingman") and how sometimes, it's justified (in the aerobic slam of "Whipping," Vedder unapolagetically shouts "Don't mean to push, but I'm being shoved!").

Number two, they are commentaries on the real world circa late 1994: how humans with a gift for anything can be hounded literally to death by the pressure of living up to who they are supposed to be (especially "Corduroy," the simple, Neil Young nod "Not For You," and "Immortality").

But, contrary to the apocalypic tape looped squall of the album's totally insane closer "Hey Foxymophandlemama, That's Me" (which marked the karmically important entrance of fourth drummer Jack Irons), not all of Vitalogy's dark, complex sentiments bode the end of the world.

Hard-won redemption is possible: The sun and ocean provide catharsis in "Last Exit," while the angels in "Tremor Christ" can win out "if they get there first." Elsewhere, it's the music itself that is hopeful: the underrated instrumental "Aye Davanita" bubbles and builds and dawns like a day.

With Cobain's death, Pearl Jam's own mounting pressures and a tour cancelled as the war with TicketMaster escalated, it would have made sense for the then-three year old band to step out of traffic for a long rest. But Pearl Jam poured all of the ill confusion into one rich allegorical album, alive with devils, suns, angels, saviours and truants, set to more complex music than they'd ever made before. Had they been unable to move forward where they'd stopped, it might have been impossible to ever begin again. It's funny - before Vitalogy, Pearl Jam were often called rock's youngest heirs. Afterwards, these guys were practically veterans.