Customer Reviews

Eternal [Vinyl]

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is one of those rare instances in which the reviewers aren't engaged in ecstatic hyperbole just because one of their long time favorite groups has come out with a new album. The opinions expressed by each and every reviewer are justified. The music requires a few listens to really appreciate what has been done, and I generally find that good music often doesn't jump out as outstanding the first time around. This is old school punk with melody, psychedelic overtones and credible lyrics. Several of the songs are reminiscent of the Stooges (with the exception of The Weirdness) and the Velvet Underground, without being in any way derivative.

So I see they finally got someone who could play bass - up from that Sonic Youth tribute band - but as was the case with Pavement, I guess I just have to accept the fact that Sonic Youth are never going to get someone who brings as much to the vocals and lyrics as those boys bring to the guitars. As usual, the vocals and lyrics often make the small hairs tingle with embarrassment. This stuff would have been wretched for a junior high punk band in 1981, but now, it's just mystifying. This band has made the most challenging, the hardest rocking, the most beautiful and ecstatic music by any rock band over the past 25 years. The guitars, especially, are like nothing else in rock. You have to go outside of rock altogether to find music that has this brilliant richness of texture. So why do the lyrics often sound like my ten-year-old son when he's trying to insult one of cartoon characters he's watching? Or like the diary entries of an entitled and angry teenaged girl who really should be reading more and writing less? When I first started listening to the band 30 or so years ago I passed all this off as some species of adolescent snarky, anti-beauty abrasiveness thing - an aesthetic, mind you, that was fresh about a century ago. I assumed they would outgrow it. Over the years it became almost endearing, like the one puzzling but disturbing flaw in some otherwise amazing and beloved friend. Oh well. The music still hunts you, pins you down, and demands that you listen, really listen, and every once in a while, there's something like bliss - too rare in this noisy, stupid world.

A return to their bolder, noisier and hard rocking roots, THE ETERNAL is a nice change of direction for SY from their more subdued RATHER RIPPED (a great album in it's own right but not what I've come to love about Sonic Youth since i first discovered them in high school). I listen to SY because I want to hear some hard edged rock and in that department THE ETERNAL delivers.

Standout tracks include "Poison Arrow" which is bombastic, angry, and just plain fun to listen to, "Massage The History," which does just that as the longest and most referential to SY's past psychedelic offerings. Meandering, and a little heavy handed, but epic in its own way. In fact, the whole album seems epic, but isn't upon repeated listens. It's not exactly a case of "Mailing it in," but it certainly isn't among their best albums.

That said, SY still does enough things right that even their lesser work is still highly enjoyable, and better than most of what is being billed as 'rock' these days, Indy or otherwise. SY have always known who and what they are, and THE ETERNAL is more proof of that. A little smug perhaps, a little self indulgent, and a little self referential, but fun none-the-less.

4/5 Stars. For SY fans it is of course an obvious and immediate buy.

Five stars easily. Probably Sonic Youth's best record since Dirty. Most of the songs are basically fast-tempo rock songs, but with lots of variations so that you never know where the song is going to go next. Amazing sound textures in the background, which is characteristic of Sonic Youth, but the execution here is better than I have heard for a long time. Sonic Youth obviously put a lot of time and hard work into crafting this album, and it shows. They seem to have put more time into writing the lyrics for this album too than in some prior albums. I can't stop listening to track #5--I forget the name of the song.

Having loved the classic SY of the late 80's/early 90's, this album had the warm, familiar feeling of an old friend. A slightly depressed, drugged-out friend, but one who's fun to hang out with all the same.

The album starts off in fine fashion with the driving beat and aggressive Gordon vocals of "Sacred Trickster." The second track "Anti-Orgasm" stumbles a little with some clumsy political lyrics. After that, the "The Eternal" settles into a brooding, fuzzed out jam that carries through to the end. "Antenna" sounds like a mix of Slint and the My Bloody Valentine song "Cupid Come." "No Way" is a great track that harks back to melodic Daydream Nation songs like "Candle." "Walkin Blue" has a catchy opening riff and great guitar work thoughout. The album ends with "Massage The History," where Kim Gordon's straining whisper and aging voice give the song a spooky, otherworldly feeling.

What I always loved about SY was the way they could set a mood, and The Eternal does as well as any album in their catalog. SY isn't breaking new ground here, but they're doing what they do well.

The last couple of SY releases have been pretty mellow which is why it is so satisfying to hear them come out agressive with 2 a-- kickers to start of the album in Sacred Trickster and Anti Orgasm.

Anti Orgasm shows the versatility of this band with going from a classic noise bridge into an almost ambient outro..in a way this song encapsulates everything this band has done for the past 4 albums into one song.

Antenna is a beautiful song...an instant SY classic.

10 out of the 12 tracks are excellent. The other two (Poison Arrow, Thunderclap) are very good.

Sonic Youth have become masters of mixing their more experimental material with really catchy musical and vocal hooks making this album very enjoyable on a lot of different levels.

A couple of thoughts..

Kim Gordon has really matured as a vocalist. This is probably her strongest performance ever on record.

Lee Renaldo contributes one of his best songs ever in What We Know as well as the excellent Walking Blue. Why is it that Lee Ranaldo always gets only one or two tracks but those tracks are always the best on the album?

The addition of Mark Ibold on bass really adds some depth to the music. This is the best groove that Sonic Youth has ever layed down on a record.

As a Sonic Youth fan since high school when I first heard Sister count me in the camp who feel that Sonic Youth have gotten better with age. 3 out of their last 4 albums (Murray Street, Rather Ripped , The Eternal) are among the SY albums that I play the most.

Truly remarkeable for a group that is nearing 30 years of making music.

I usually like half the songs on each SY CD, but I like just about everything here. Avoids both the annoying sonic dissonance and off-key vocals that seem to infect each album, and instead focuses on what they do best -- driving tempos and strong guitar work.

I liked Sonic Youth's last few records, from Murray Street to Rather Ripped, but the Eternal is a really good album. They seem very comfortable with their current songwriting and keep an even mood thru the whole record. I'm not going to compare this to their early stuff because it's apples oranges. Sister is one of my favorite records of all time. ALL TIME - how can you expect anyone to live up to that?

It really doesn't seem like three years have passed since Sonic Youth released "Rather Ripped." In those three years a lot has changed for the band, most notably a new record label (Matador) and the addition of former Pavement bassist Mark Ibold to their fold. Their first record for Matador, "The Eternal" is a definitive statement of Sonic Youth circa now condensing every element of their no-wave sound into one expansive album.

"The Eternal" was written in Northhampton, MA and recorded in Hoboken, NJ by John Agnello and Aaron Mullan who captured the dissonance and grace of the elite NYC group. The twelve tracks that comprise "The Eternal" while reflective as a sort chronology of the band also references subjects such as artist Yves Klein on "Sacred Trickster" and 60's Berlin model Uschi Obermeier on "Anti-Orgasm," one of the album's early stand-out tracks. Other heavily rotated tracks include, "Antenna" and the Britney Spears inspired "Malibu Gas Station."

It's evident on "The Eternal" that Sonic Youth refuse to become a band that compromises its sound or interests for whatever trends are readily adopted by the masses. They seem to possess a special something that they pay homage to in their songs, that something called integrity.

Sonic youth as a band can be described by one word, faithful. Unlike most everyone else in the music world they have never compromised their vision. I own their catalog and I would describe " the eternal" with one word also, inspired!