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What duds are there on this album? My answer: none. I love every song. That doesn't happen often for me with SY albums. Usually there's one I could do without.
My track by track review:
Sacred Trickster- Kim rocking the fuck out. Perfect execution.
Anti-Orgasm - Thurston rocking the fuck out. . . wait no. . . Thurston and Kim singing back and forth and both rocking out in punk rock fashion. Wait. . . now we've got a very spacey ending. Nothing standard about this one, what you think is a simple song keeps unfolding and getting more complicated.
Leaky Lifeboat (for Gregory Corso)- A lot of new textures to be had here, lots of little layers under things very WM or ATL like. There are little chord parts and melodies and sounds that are alien to SY recordings interspersed through the song that don't immediately pop out. The speed and the tightness of this song is striking. The harmonic intro and then the little lead part during the verses fit together hand in hand.
Antenna- Excellent drumming, excellent singing by thurston. Also there's a little meanness to the guitar- some of the arpeggiating in the instrumental, and then that chord change right before the vocals kick in. Those two things put Antenna over the top for me.
What We Know- Kim's vocals add a lot here, it's nice having Lee and Kim sharing duties. The little riff at the end of each verse is awesome too. Fuzzed out and garagey. That little part from 1:45-1:55 between the second chorus and before the usual SY type noise jam is really nice.
Calming the Snake- Kim rocking the fuck out again. I love when the verse guitar part comes in and everything comes out. The second guitar playing that mean line every other bar in the left channel is freaking awesome as well. Not to mention the nice "oh oh oh oh ohhhhhs" from Kim
Poison Arrow- Yeah Thurston does sound like Lou Reed here, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Another strong song from him vocally. More backup from Kim on here, which works wonderfully yet again.
Malibu Gas Station- A clean guitar venture by Sonic Youth in ATL or DDN type. And they're masters at writing songs like this. The slowly strummed warbly chords in the left channel make this song- it gives it sort of an upbeat surfy feel. After the instrumental there's a bridge that recalls the Leaky Life boat motif. A nice touch. Usually this sort of song by them is a lot slower and loser, but Malibu Gas Station is very tight (sort of a trend of The Eternal- a bit quicker and tighter than usual.) Then the noise jam at the end instead of going on forever ends very quickly to go back into the chorus once more at the end. It makes for a nice transition, and you don't expect it. You expect them to rock out the noise for a minute or two, but no.
Thunderclap for Bobby Pyn- So this is dedicated to Darby Crash, and the music shows it. It's got this cool punk rock vibe . The brief acapella moments seem oddly appropriate, as do the Woah woahs and yeah yeahs. One of my favorite touches is by Steve. On the third verse he does this little rolling cymbal or bell thing, that's cool.
No Way- initially I thought this was going to suck from the early live recordings. But I like the album version. A bit simpler than Thunderclap, but still a good song.
Walkin Blue- A great Lee song. Nice noise texture at the beginning. I haven't heard that one. The parts with the doubled vocals remind me of something, but I can't put my finger on it. Some of the lead parts of very Kraut-rocky to me.
Massaging the History- best song on the album. Beautiful acoustic guitar along with a haunting tremolo picked echoey lead with Kim's soft vocals that she's made good use of over the last few albums. Not to mention that nice part with the modulated reverb on her vocals. This song turns me on. It's so sexy. If I had an attractive girl in the room while listening to it for the first time I'd probably end up on the couch or in the bed with her, not of either of our will's but of the songs.
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