SONIC YOUTH – THE ETERNAL
The worlds oldest avant-garde, post-punk, art-rock band keep on keeping on. Indeed The Eternal sees Sonic Youth return to their indie roots after some two decades with major labels in the post-Nirvana, grunge boom. Not that the band could ever have been accused of bending to label pressure to convert to the mainstream, rather they sought to bend the mainstream to embrace the Sonic Youth way (the immovable object verses the irresistible force). The Eternal embraces all the elements that have marked an enduring quarter of a Sonic Youth century. There are the out-and-out art noise explorations, discordant chord journey, flirtations with melody, and – at their best – turning off the head and on the heart for joyous primal rock and roll. We love Kim Gordan’s squall on Anti-Orgasm, we adore their post-MC5 rock of What We Know, we accept their pretensions – Leaky Lifeboat – still unsure if their own seeming acknowledgement of said pretensions makes them acceptable. There is nothing on this album that will convert the unbelievers, little that will disappoint the converted, and everything that we love and hate about Sonic Youth, and they would want it no other way.
*** 1/2
