Urban Hat€monger ?

A lot of people say Nirvana broke the underground....
Nahh
At least not with me anyway.Although technically I owned Nevermind before I owned Dirty it was that Sonic Youth album that got me into 'indie' I still consider Dirty to be the first indie album I ever owned (And yes I do realise it came out on Geffen , so shut it).Quite simply if it wasn`t for Sonic Youth I wouldn`t have discovered Husker Du , Pussy Galore , Nation Of Ulysess , Dinosaur JR , Big Black , Galaxie 500 , The Pixies , Black Flag , Redd Kross , The Flaming Lips and many many more at the time that I did. Sonic Youth made me realise there was more to rock music than what i`d already heard , it was them that made me want to discover the underground , Nirvana for me were no different to most of the other rock bands I was already aware of.

Sonic Youth for me are very hit & miss . perhaps THE most hit & miss band out there For every great album they`ve ever made (This one , Goo , Dirty , Sister)They`ve also made some totally unlistenable crap (Bad Moon Rising , NY City Ghosts & Flowers) But I guess you have to respect them for it , there`s not many bands that can spend over 15 years on a major record lable and spend the whole time doing what the hell they like with their music without outside interference.

I think this is their best album , it seems more focused than most of their stuff. There`s hardly any of the usual Sonic Youth thing where they break the song down in the middle & fill it with 3 minutes of tuneless jangly guitar bits (Sonic Youth fans know exactly what I mean by this).There are a couple of weak points on the album , Providence is Radiohead`s Fitter Happier a decade earlier, a simple piano peice in the background with phone messages rather than Thom Yorke`s Steven Hawking impression. Also Rain King is a bit of a tuneless duffer but the quality of the rest of the album more than make up for those.

But the good stuff, God it`s wonderful. Teen Age Riot could very well be the greatest album opener of all time , but i`ve probably said that already somewhere about other songs on here. You expect it to be a loud fist pumping anthem , but it isn`t. It`s a gentle slow building song with Kim Gordons (Age 70) breathy vocals easing you into the album before Thurston takes over and starts the album off proper .I do like Kim Gordons vocals in fact i`d say she`s in my top 5 of female vocalist. She manages to pull of sexy , agressive and vunerable all at the same time.Sometime I find it rather unsettling but always captivating. Silver Rocket is another of my favourite songs off the album and one of my favourite Sonic Youth 'ROCK' songs. In fact this is the song they played the first time I ever saw the band on TV. With Thurston Moore in bright green pants & the band surrounded by fairy lights. I always picture that in my head everytime I hear this song now.
By now on any other Sonic Youth album i`d figure 2 songs in so i`m bound to not like the next song , but no ... not on this album The Sprawl in my opinion is one of the bands best , yet most ignored songs. Kim Gordons vocals are bursting with sexuality & attitute , I could listen to that woman yelling '**** YOU' over & over again in the context of a song quite happily.It sufferes a bit towards the end with the usual '3 minute jangly bit' but you expect a song called The Sprawl to be a bit .... well y`know Sprawling? In contrast the next song Cross The Breeze is much the same in style only much harder and with Thurston on vocals this time the song doesn`t lose direction & is much
stronger for it.

The second half of the album is where the real strength lies , not that the songs on it are fantastic but because although some of them are obvious filler ,they are really really solid good songs. The likes of Eric`s Trip , Hey Joni , Total Trash or Kissability on any other Sonic Youth album they would probably be highlights. Not as good as the first half of the album but stick them on any other album & they would be. When you have filler tracks that good you know you have a special album. What the second half of the album has though is Candle. Make me write a list of all my favourite Sonic Youth songs and Candle would top the list , no question. Very much the same as Teen Age Riot in structure but much much more listenable. This is almost the nearest that Sonic Youth have come to doing a commercially sounding rock song.If anything I think it`s a huge shame they didn`t do much more of this. They did on 'Dirty' but not as good as this sadly.
The album finishes with the epic 14 minute Trilogy , which is basically just an excuse to stick 3 songs on as one. One of the things i`ve noticed about this song(s) is that the encapsulate Sonic Youth`s career in one song. The Wonder sounds like it could have come off their previous 'Sister' album , Hyperstation could be easily slotted onto the Evol album & nobody would notice.And the album ends with the punk rock blast of Eliminator JR which brings us back to the days of Kill Yr Idols /Confusion Is Sex era Sonic Youth.
And thats what makes this album special , the best of the past mixed with what was to come with Goo & Dirty. Their whole career in one album. And because of mainly this album i`ll always be getting whatever new album they come out with , even if I don`t like a single song on it , i`ll still get the album that comes out after it.

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