Sonic Youth are a difficult band to get into, I myself often turned my head in disgust each time someone praised their two chord guitar assault with the same conviction of a stoned Deadhead (is there any other kind).
“They’re genius man. I mean the way Thurston Moore plays the guitar…and Kim Gordon, man she’s hot. I totally would do her.”
Who am I to argue with such a cogent and well thought out argument such as that one?
But like all other people I eventually caved into peer pressure (say no to drugs kids) and took the immortal Daydream Nation out for a spin.
It took only opening track “Teen Age Riot” to convince me that everything that flannel wearing burnout was saying is gospel; my mind had officially been blown.
Now a decade removed from that music induced high, I find myself equally disillusioned and ready for another nihilistic cacophony of grinding distortion.
Enter Sonic Youth’s 16th studio album The Eternal, which isn’t nearly as good as their 1988 classic, but is still better than 90 percent of the sh*t churned out by major record labels.
Speaking of which, Moore and company ditched their previous label Geffen Records and signed with the less business savvy Matador, home to such indie greats as Cat Power, Lou Reed, and Pavement.
Their new unrestrained environment pays dividends on first single “Sacred Trickster”, whose savage guitars and pulverizing drum channel Iggy and the Stooges era garage rock all while Gordon coos, “I wish I could be music on a tree/Noise nomads and me/Levitating, spinning around.”
The subdued “Antenna” features a perpetually dejected Moore, who with the help of otherworldly ambient noise, attempts to make contact with another less malevolent species.
An often ignored Lee Ranaldo lends his vocals and guitar expertise on the sinewy “What We Know”, a low fidelity meditation on the impassioned brevity of life and love, “It’s been quite a ride/With you my sweet, here by my side.”
My only criticism is that ultimately every one of their songs sounds the f*cking same, but oh what a song it is.
