Customer Reviews

Sonic Death

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

My copy only has one track not two, so it's even heaveier going!

This album is excellent... almost the equivalent of the SYR series only 15 years earlier. Snippets of actual songs from early Sonic LPs show up but they're not the point of this, the instrumentals are.

It just shows how much fun being in Sonic Youth is, despite their reputation for po-faced pretensiousness... they put The World Looks Red on in double-speed and it still sounds kewl!

I think they were just having fun, and what everyone forgets is originally this was a fan club only release on Thurston's Exstatic Peace! label -- it was never meant to be a best-seller.

Bear that in mind, listen to it on headphones and have fun -- it's like a musically rollercoaster -- scary and exhilerating!

This isn't for fans of Goo or Dirty. It's Sonic Youth's noisiest and most abrasive album. If you like Confusion is Sex, you'll love this. It's got awesome versions of The Good and the Bad, Confusion is Next, The Burning Spear, Kill Yr Idols, Early American, and some really cool instrumental stuff. All the songs are noisier than the studio versions, even the songs from Sonic Youth's weird early 1981 period. My only complaint is that Lee doesn't play the power drill on Burning Spear!

To get the full power of this recording you really have to invent a time machine and go back to the early eighties and see Sonic Youth perform live. An example of the early, raw power of this band. Back when they first started they were constantly redefining their sound with new kinds of chord progressions, feedback, distortion and just plain weirdness before settling into the corporate mainstream with more accessible recordings of their music. Still a great band though, especially live. The best early work by this band also includes Bad Moon Rising and Evol.

Yes, it's got no commercial potential, yes it's arty, yes it's not always catchy, but it is worthwhile for the SY fan. My version is just 1 track which makes it that you have play it all @ once, but it was originally a tape just so you could paly a couple of minutes @ a time like Vocabularinist's tapes are now. You have to remember that SY were not a pop group back then so this & GOO are diametrically opposed while both good. If you pay attention, there are great live versions of Confusion is Next, Burning Spear, & spaced out instrumental pieces + it will probably shut up that Pantera fan who thinks SY aren't hardcore enough.

I had been forever searching for a copy of the now out-of-print 1982 Sonic Youth (self-titled) ep, but (as can be expected) I was out of luck. Yet, when I happened upon this two-track CD in a used-record shop one day, I decided that it was the next best thing -- after all, it's still early Sonic Youth music, right? Perhaps it would have a version of "Burning Spear" on it.

Which it does. Yet the disappointing thing about this... this... -- well, it's not even an album, it's just a bunch of recordings -- thing is not that it's lo-fi, nor that it's "inaccessible" or whatnot, but that it doesn't really consist of much: just a lot of song fragments and bizarre tape noises and repetitive feedback. (Not that there's anything wrong with guitar feedback and noise in and of itself, but it doesn't exactly do much without any variety.)

And that's exactly what Sonic Death is lacking: variety. Musicianship. Emotion. I was expecting to hear some wonderfully raw, live versions of some of the early songs, like "Shaking Hell" (one of Kim Gordon's most harrowing and wonderful vocal performances I've yet heard) and "I Don't Want to Push It" and "I Dreamed I Dream." Instead, there were uninteresting bits of conversations about McDonald's and such spliced in between the all-too-short (albeit good) song bits.

SY's album Sonic Death is a excellent album. It sounds like an album that belongs in the avant-garde genre. it is similar to a lot of Mike Paton projects like Mr. Bungle. I really enjoy trying to sleep while listening to the dark haunting music that makes up this cd. It has two tracks but the total play time of the cd is over 70 minutes. if you liked In the Fishtank then i think you'll probably enjoy this. It is very addictive, and when listening to it the brain shuts down making it impossible for one to think. I don't think it's sonic youths best; however, i feel that it does a great job of expressing raw emotion through the music.

This is certainly not an album for anyone, maybe not even anyone besides me. Even Sonic Youth fans tend to belittle this one. But I love it--only two tracks (at least on the one I have), 68 minutes long, and very lo-fi, this is my kind of thing. It's clearly Sonic Youth at their least commercial--releasing it was probably a big middle finger to the notion of even attempting to produce hits (it was originally released in about 1984). And it's also Sonic Youth at their most mesmerizing, darkly beautiful, goofy, and experimental. If you're a big Sonic Youth fan like me (i.e., you have all of their albums), and you like experimental music, this still might not be for you. I love that it's that kind of album--it really tests the limits of the listener. Anyway, if you do buy this and like it (or, by some chance, you already have it and like it), I'd also recommend you buy Sebadoh's "Freed Weed." While that album has many more tracks (40) and even some guitar hooks, it's also very lo-fi, beautiful, goofy and experimental--the songs are somewhat straightforward until most of them get quite experimental towards the end.

O.K. maybe 4 stars if you're a hardcore fan but if want to get into Sonic Youth? Do not buy this, you will be deluded and think they're not good which they are. The other review (the ONLY other review) said GOOFY, yeah, really, really goofy and weird. I agree. There are no vocals, just a bit of shouting and stuff, at the end it's pretty good, oh and in the middle they talk about burgers or something. This CD is like a non-vocal Portishead with a bad cold. It's old stuff, go for the new.

I own two albums by this artist (not three, this one's in a landfill somewhere). I respect Sonic Youth, don't get me wrong, but I've got to tell you... My three-year old sister could get together with her sandbox playmates and produce a more powerful musical statement than this album generates. This is very weak material in every sense of the word. Weak and very, very, very bad-sounding. Even SY diehards, my advice to you is to look elsewhere.