Album: Sonic Youth / The Eternal

Artist: Sonic Youth

Album: The Eternal

This far along the road, listening to a contemporary Sonic Youth album is a bit like watching a contemporary Simpsons episode — usually enjoyable, but often with the slight aftertaste of a rehash of something you remember from ten or fifteen years ago. Relative to their whole output, this may just be "just another Sonic Youth album", but it's not without its charms. You can look for the minute variations: get Kim to sing the chorus on Lee's song — it's like pairing up Lisa and Superintendent Chalmers! Lacking a killer single, this is saved by its depth throughout — good listening start to finish, and an especially good one-two punch leading off. After that, you can mostly sit back and enjoy the textures. Thurston seems to be bringing the least winning tunes to the table, leaving Lee's stuff to shine a bit brighter, and Kim, as usual, has a pretty good one and a not-so-good one in there.

I'm not sure what this says about the band and its music, but there's something interesting to the fact that more space in the album's liner notes are given to art and photography credits than to the music and who made it. Meanwhile, I dunno what high-art concept about "The Eternal" the John Fahey painting reproduced on the cover is meant to convey, but it unfailingly makes me think, "Mmmm..... cherry danish".