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Eventually
it became easy to take Sonic Youth for granted. We all
just knew they'd be there, year after year, churning
out the brand of fractured art rock they invented, with
a certain amount of consistency, limited variation and
more or less diminishing inspiration. Thus some wags
rolled out the obvious jibes about a bunch of graying,
middle-aged hipsters -- parents even! -- continuing
to tout their "Youth." To many, this band that used
to mean everything wasn't delivering the goods any longer.
Others simply yawned and wondered why they hadn't broken
up yet.
Earlier this summer, the group sneaked up on us
and released a really good album called Murray
Street -- it would've been a great album without
the two minutes of Kim Gordon growling an awfully
silly set of lyrics on "Plastic Sun." But seven out
of eight ain't bad, to paraphrase the busty dude from
Fight Club, and those seven other songs show
off what Sonic Youth can do at their best. They reconcile
conflicting impulses: sing-along pop melodies float
atop chugging grooves or screeching rock maelstroms
that are surprisingly concise, but usually bookended
by extended sections of guitar jamming that turn back
and forth from chaotic distortion to crystalline beauty.
The song portion of centerpiece "Karen Revisited,"
Lee Ranaldo's perfect kiss-off to an ex-friend stuck
on a permanent nostalgia trip, is simply as good as
anything else burned onto aluminum-coated plastic
so far this year. Onstage we can look forward to the
band's sentencing this new batch of ace tunes to a
little bit of sonic death. All of a sudden the same-old
we took for granted is vital and worthy of notice
once again.
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