Sonic Youth - The Eternal

So after the album "Daydream Nation", sonic youth signed to a major label and released nothing worth noting within some 17 years of music. THEN, they announced they were going to the idie label matador, so steve albini declared it was cool to listen to them again.

WHAT WERE WE EXPECTING?

A lot of people thought that here, s-y would get REALLY out there and take advantage of having no pressures that they would have on a major label or whatever. but, the truth is, they never had that when they were of geffen and its ridiculous to think that them switching labels would make them change their sound. regardless, all points are moot and what we have here is a strangely consistent and normal sounding album.

OHH HEY!

and MARK IBOLD is playing bass here with them. He's done it for a few years, but this is the first time on record. I like to talk about his smile, but very few of you have seen it. here's some pictures:
(note - the pics in the email are much better. i couldn't figure out how to post them. mark is the man on the far left. the people he is with are those guys from pavement)



uh, what was i talking about?

oh, yeah, the new sonic youth album.

well, it starts with a nice short song. then, one thats 6 minutes, complete with thurston and kim "grunting" which makes everyone feel a little awkward. then, some song for a beat poet that stole toasters or something (greg corso), then a 6 minute song which might be a truly fantastic highlight of this album. not redundant at all, right?
the rest of it is alright. honestly though, i was kinda let down at first. it took me awhile to get into it. HOWEVER, upon hearing 11 of the 12 songs live back in june, i listened to the album again, and determined that it was actually quite nice.

i am little let down by lee's songs though. usually, i can enjoy a nice lee tune. like "wish fulfillment" or "mote", but here, we get "what we know" which sounds a little more like "what we know (we can do to write a song and make it not be as good as it could be potentially)" and "walkin' blue", which is nice, but meh, its no "wish fulfillment".

Kim and Thurston sound nice and healthy. And Steve Shelly finally looks like he isn't 12.

Production wise, it seems very heavy on the LOW end. I mean, that could be because of the 2 basses, but when i saw them do these songs live, Marcus was the only one playing bass (kim played guitar or danced awkwardly in heels and a fanny pack). However, it really opens up when you can play it loud.
Or something.

I don't know.

Two weeks from today I'll be seeing them again and I'll make sure to ask them about the mix and lack of good songs by Lee.

Failures.

OVERALL RATING - better than 4 TUNNA BRIX. Equal to Ciccone Youth for sure.
KEY TRACKS - "no way", "antenna", "leaky lifeboat", "poison arrow"