Sonic Youth - The Eternal

8th June 2009
Matador

1 Sacred Trickster
2 Anti-Orgasm
3 Leaky Lifeboat (for Gregory Corso)
4 Antenna
5 What We Know
6 Calming the Snake
7 Poison Arrow
8 Malibu Gas Station
9 Thunderclap for Bobby Pyn
10 No Way
11 Walkin Blue
12 Massage the History

First album with new bassist Mark Ibold, returning to the three guitar attack line-up, and a bloomin' good job too as this is Sonic Youth at its best. And what I mean by that is when the band use the guitars to full effect to bring out the dynamic and melody of their songs then something special occurs.

My stand-out album from the band in the last decade is the memorable "Murray Street" so I always - perhaps somewhat unfairly - use that album as some sort of litmus test. So, how does it compare? Very well in fact.

Matters start well with "Sacred Trickster" a Kim Gordon vocal over trademark riffing of the highest order - a statement of intent, perhaps. Thurston and Kim share vocals on the polemic "Anti-Orgasm" - a not untypical SY structure and fine for that. "Leaky Lifeboat" is Lee with Kim on la-la-la backing vocal - perhaps the poppiest tune on the disc.

Matters are then taken up a gear or two with the sublime "Antenna" and brash, and yet, melodic Thurston focused song. Layers of guitars and guitar sounds drive a head shakingly memorable laconic song around radio's and things. Lee's "What we know" - seen recently on Joolz H*lland - is a pile-driving noisy thing and features some intense guitar abuse that only this band can deliver with any degree of quality. When the sound drops away to bass and drums and the band kick back in you really do a get a sense of the power of this band to deliver those layers of guitar noise in infinitely clever ways.

"Calming the snake" is similarly challenging - a simply bass-drum intro gets invaded by shed loads of interlocking guitar noise. Kim's vocal is suitably sexy in a sort of scary way and the last minute or so is a sublime celebration of noise and the power of the chord. "Poison Arrow" is more of the same with Thurston sounding a tad Dylanesque, and Kim doubling on the chorus. The signature riff/high note figure/staccato chord structure is so familiar but also sounds so new in this context.

"Malibu Gas Station" slows things down to sort of pastoral level with an opening set of guitar figures and then kicks into a mid-tempo pop song - there is a lot of hard chording here which doubles up with Steve's driving drum work. Kim sings and there is a real motorik feel to this.
"Thunderclap for Bobby Pyn" is a suitably manic hommage to Darby Crash and if anything reinforces my only complaint about the album which is that Steve Shelley is mixed a tad to low in places.

Back to pop-rock land with a "No Way" but there is a signal of perhaps a change to new schema - dextrous guitar work and some clever variations in form and structure. Alien guitar sounds introduce "Walkin' Blue" - perhaps the most complete and compelling song on the album. Matters conclude with the lengthy "Massage the History" - a medium tempo piece which is comparable to Murray Street's "Rain on Tin" with its shifts in structure and tension and release. Breathy Kim Gordon vocals move from seductive requests to some stark observations about the state of the world. The understated end leaves this listener with the question where next for this group of talented musicians?

All in all a worthy piece of work with some evidence of a potential shift in direction if some of the more challenging parts of this album are developed further.