Eddie Vedder's solo debut starts out strongly with the appropriately titled "Setting Forth," a jangly, rootsy spin on the music on which the Pearl Jam singer has built his career . . . and then suddenly it's over, barely a minute and a half after it began.
That's the problem with "Into the Wild." Even though the album's role as the soundtrack to Sean Penn's lost-in-the-wilderness film explains the songs' briefness - their job, first and foremost, is to complement the action on the screen - it's still frustrating to hear Vedder jettison interesting ideas almost as quickly as they come. Some tracks - including the "Dust in the Wind"-biting instrumental "Tuolumne" and "The Wolf" - aren't much more than ideas to begin with.
