http://www.411mania.com/music/album_reviews/41446
I’m going to say the title means ‘mostly drunk’ because that might help you when listening to this.
Release date: June 13th 2006
Label: DGC Records
Recorded: Sear Studio in New York-late 2005 to early 2006
Engineer: TJ Doherty
Mix Engineer: John Agnello
Total Disc Running Time: 51 minutes and 53 seconds
Personnel:
Thurston Moore-guitars and vocals
Lee Ranaldo-guitars, vocals and organ
Kim Gordon-bass, guitar and vocals
Steve Shelley-drums
Sonic Youth has been around since the early eighties. They took a lot of cues from punk and the underground rock scene. This led them to be tossed in with new wave, but they always had more of a darker edge. Then in the early nineties they were poised somewhere between grunge and alternative rock, but really got weird with the experimentation. If anything, Sonic Youth carries on the tradition of musical experimentation and raw grit of
The Velvet Underground and other hardcore pre-punk acts.
Their last album was a welcome return to a more accessible mainstream sound, but it was rich in
pop culture irony and esoteric postmodernism. This release seems to be less winking and could even be viewed as a toss off as it's the last album needed to fulfill their contract with Geffen Records. Two elements to note is that Jim O'Rourke has left the band and equipment that was stolen from the group in 1999 was returned to them in late 2005 and were used in this recording.
Track Listing
1) Reena
Good opener that is the core of Sonic Youth. It seems simple and disjointed in lyrics and musical arrangement, but it's really multi-layered. The layering of the guitars speaks of how far they've come from their punk roots while the driving beat shows that they are still loyal to it. The track has overall great musicianship with Shelley letting loose on the drums during the bridge.
2) Incinerate
Peppy musicianship hides the dark tale of a man who waits for the firemen to come while he burns his girlfriend. Whether this is literal doesn't really matter. The same layered sound and driving beat as the first is present here, this track might be a hair slower. Surprisingly catchy.
3) Do You Believe in Rapture?
A very interesting track. The sing-song organ and use of white noise is inventive and perfectly matches Moore's hollow vocals in a skewered examination of Christianity. It's definitely not a candidate for single status.
4) Sleepin' Around
It's classic Sonic Youth anti-social commentary to follow a song exploring religion with one touting the glory of promiscuous sex. A little too much reverb is evident on the bridge, but it then drops into some nice driving guitar work.
5) What a Waste
We smartly change things up with Gordon taking lead vocals. Dissidence and white noise is again played with in the background. This song is a weird mish-mash of death metal and Avril Lavigne styled teenie bopper angst. Hell, Gordon's vocal performance and the truer punk sound of this track is what Lavigne wishes she were.
6) Jams Run Free
A disjointed mess, but that's the point. This song demonstrates what happens when you don't tightly reel in the sound they've demonstrated on the other tracks.
Sounds and chords
mash into each other and not in the best of ways. The lyrics are just placeholders. As the title points out this is just a jam for the group that was probably too free to be included on a professional studio release.
7) Rats
An intriguing, gritty
jazz vibe leaks into this track. This is evident in the bass and
keyboard work. It's a welcome change up from the previous tracks, but all the songs on the disc are still structured the same way. One of the more coherent lyrically the story is of a woman who ‘rats' out on her boyfriend. Or so I'm guessing.
8) Turqoise Boy
Nice opener as the chords have a circular movement to them and not the straight ahead drive of the other tracks. The vocals and musicianship is also more low key. Three quarters into the disc this track serves as a nice palate cleanser. Just when you think it's a little too wimpy the guitar line beefs up to send the song home. I would probably term this as my favorite track.
9) Lights Out
A sparse, tinny sound and vocals a millions miles away and filled with angst give this an early grunge sound. Dare I use the word ‘filler' for a Sonic Youth album, but this song just laid there for me.
10) The Neutral
A great track with clever lines. It's about how one being banal and ‘neutral' is the "perfect sin." The character being sung about is not a
dreamer, entertainer, cowboy, poet, nothing. He's neutral and within that vexing and hard to define, yet sad and worthless at the same time.
11) Pink Steam
The last track bleeds into this one as we get a five minute solid jam that segues from the last song to this one before the vocals kick in. This gives the piece a certain energy. Once again good drum and guitar work are the highlight.
12) Or
A great closing track. It's slow and introspective. It chastises the current music scene with its focus on money and sexuality when most of the artists don't have a clue as to what is going on. Perhaps you can take this as giving Geffen records the finger as they exit.
The 411: Sonic Youth has really grown as a band from their punk and new wave heyday as this disc demonstrates. While now you could put them under alternative rock, the layered sound that still somehow captures a raw vibe is hard to define. The mixing is not great as the vocals are drowned out on most tracks and the guitars are a little too ever present. The structures of all the songs are similar as are the arrangements that alternate between ‘fast’ and ‘slow.’ In some respects there is the tale-tale signs that they were just doing this album to finish up their contract with Geffen Records, but they certainly don’t phone it in.
Final Score: 7.0