Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Music news Sonic Youth's The Eternal hits the streets
Posted by Chad Radford @ChadRad on Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 6:07 PM
Sonic Youth's umpteenth studio album the Eternal hit the streets yesterday via Matador Records, and it is a monster. The gorgeous John Fahey painting on the album's cover sums it up in one circular and rhtyhmic motion.
The Eternal is a swirling mass of stark, guitar textures where persistent, avant-garde movements lure the senses into a familiar place before opening up to reveal the truly bombastic nature of the album.
Over the last decade albums such as NYC Ghosts and Flowers, Sonic Nurse and Rather Ripped have upheld the group's legacy, but The Eternal is easily Sonic Youth's strongest record in years. "Sacred Trickster," "Anti-Orgasm," "Antenna" and "No Way" evoke the energy, the darkness and the noise wrought with such early staples as "EVOL," "Sister" and "Daydream Nation." But what sets The Eternal apart is a uniformly brilliant batch of songs that find the band thrashing through chiming melodies, chops, feedback and drones, butted against the vocal back-and-forth of Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore who come across sharper and more energetic than they have sounded in quite some time. "Sacred Trickster" sets the machine in motion with urgency and an affinity for the noir side of bleak art for the sake of rock and roll, which is what Sonic Youth has always done best. More on this in the weeks to come.
Sonic Youth plays the Variety Playhouse with the Entrance Band on Mon., July 13. $25. 8p.m.
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