[Sonic Youth 37]

Originally Posted by atsonicpark

yeah new album has some of their absolute best material. Also some of their dullest. Real weird. I'd say it's their weakest album to date, with some of their best songs. New drummer is by far their best drummer so far. LOVE the keyboard on "LIGHT IN YOUR EYES" (which also has the absolute best -- and strangest -- guitar solo Vivian Girls have ever layed to tape); strange that a keyboard makes an appearance there as well as their last single "my love will follow me around", released last April... but those are the onlytwo keyboard appearances in any VG songs. I was for some reason expecting the new album to have a lot more keyboards.

All in all, this album shows a LOT of growth, not just because two songs are 6 minutes long (!); there is a new maturity and complexity, structurally and melodically to the new stuff. Still, the two best songs besides the last track are "Death" and "Lake House", two old songs... some of the newer stuff like "dance if you wanna" and "i heard you say" retread the same ground they already treaded before, reusing the exact same beats and similiar riffs, extending the length of the songs but actally being downright boring.

So, all in all, some of their best material ever, next to some of their worst. Probably would've been wiser to release an ep of their best stuff, I have a feeling their next album will be amazing though, since there is some real amazing stuff on here...

I pretty much agree with this 98%. They seemed to have embraced the '60s girl group stuff fully on this one. Some great songs, some that weren't fully baked.