Album review: Sonic Youth’s The Eternal
June 5th, 2009 by Cooper Levey-Baker in Reviews
You’d be forgiven for thinking that Sonic Youth — average age: 50 — had mellowed in recent years. 2006’s Rather Ripped found the band working some of the most subtle grooves of its career, and the results were spectacular, a continuation of the second act SY began staging with 2002’s excellent-if-spotty Murray Street and 2004’s just-damn-perfect Sonic Nurse.
In case you worrying, though, track one of SY LP number 16, The Eternal, will cure you of any illusions that this band has gone soft. Titled “Sacred Trickster,” the song is two minutes of no-frills punk rock, with an angry vocal turn by bassist Kim Gordon and a fat bottom end that comes courtesy of new fifth band member Mark Ibold (formerly of Pavement).
But this isn’t just some uncomplicated back-to-the-basics record, either.
“Malibu Gas Station” features the squall-free riffing of guitarists Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo and minutes more of the clean jam-banding that has dominated recent discs. And “Massage the History,” which closes the album, takes the listener back to earlier ambient-SY territory, with a sprawling structure based on acoustic strums and siren-like background wails.
Like the best of SY’s work, The Eternal remains difficult to classify, and even though it doesn’t match the heights of the band’s previous work, the spark is still there. For sure.
September 29th, 2009 at 3:23 am
Sparks-a-plenty, definitely my favorite record of the sumer, just Sonic Youth doing what they’ve always done, but I think they did a little of what they did from each of their best records on this one. Like getting a little from Evol, Bad Moon Rising, Confusion is Sex, Daydream Nation, Sonic Nurse, etc. all in one convenient package. Thanx for existing Sonic Youth.