In the Guardian newspaper today, and also online:
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/reviews/s...788049,00.html
Sonic Youth, Rather Ripped
(Geffen)
Dave Simpson
Friday June 2, 2006
The Guardian
Pop careers used to be such brief, sudden-impact affairs. The Doors came and went within five years; even the Beatles packed it all in inside eight. The Sex Pistols, bless 'em, said all they needed to with one album. These days, though, nobody ever stops. Thus, New York's favourite avant-punk noiseniks find themselves pondering a longevity they couldn't have imagined when they began experimenting with electric drills and weird tunings in 1981. Back then they can't have considered the fact that choosing a moniker aligning themselves with youth culture would one day be used by rock critics to attack them for having the temerity to grow old. Except that they haven't, spiritually. Rather Ripped (to the gills, presumably) has the lightness of touch and adventure you'd normally get from a band on their debut, not veteran explorers making their 21st album.
Having pioneered avant-grunge and subterranean punk-garde, Rather Ripped sees Sonic Youth reinventing themselves again. This is as close to a pop album as they've recorded. Discernible influences are not so much the usual Glenn Branca or the darker Velvet Underground but the Ronettes and the Crystals. Well, possibly. Kim Gordon's shared vocals have certainly never sounded sweeter; songs rattle along on a succession of killer bubblegum riffs from Thurston Moore, who sounds thrilled to discover a new dimension to his playing.Switching from producer Jim O'Rourke to self-production (alongside John Agnello) has given things an urgent, spontaneous feel. The band sound riotously playful. Turquoise Boy dabbles in psychedelia. The sublime Incinerate even cheekily mimicks Roxy Music's famous "kerr-angg" intro from Pyjamarama before blasting into sugar-bomb pop. And yet, beneath the froth, the old nihilism still lurks. The songs tell tales of madness, infidelity, homicidal urges and the rest: regular terrain for the Youth, but not within such pop confections. Rather Ripped may not have the cultural impact of
1989's Daydream Nation, but it contains some of the best music of their career. An extraordinary state of affairs in Sonic Youth's 25th year.