Customer Reviews

Without a Sound

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Without a Sound is an album full of tender melodies, occasional fuzz, and atypical guitar restraint. At its release in 1994, critics took J Mascis to town, labeling him a self-parody and has-been. The accusations didn't make sense, for the most part. They pointed to a song like "Feel the Pain," with its lyric "I feel the pain of everyone, then I feel nothing" as megalomaniacal, or at least misguided. Why? Mascis never went on record as saying the song was autobiographical. If anything, coming on the heels of Kurt Cobain's suicide, it seemed perhaps about him. Perhaps not, but I pretty much just thought the song was catchy. Nothing wrong with that. Other standouts on the album include the circular, acoustic "Outta Hand," the squealing "Grab It," and the album's closer "Over Your Shoulder," an obvious and touching tribute to Mascis' dad, who had recently died. Critics complained the album had a phoned-in quality; is it even possible to half-assedly write a song to your dead father? Mascis' singing has improved greatly; it had never bothered this intrepid reviewer, anyway, but Mascis has smartly learned to put a female harmony behind his indisputably pretty, gentle melodies to great affect. Mascis also has a great sense of percussive flourish; he knows how to hit the drum harder after a line to put an exclamation point after an emotion. The album's only frustrating quality was that Mascis seems reluctant to let go of his signature rock guitar sound. The album appeared lost in a no-man's land between a power-pop gem like Matthew Sweet's "100% Fun" and Wilco's mostly acoustic, very organic, and slightly rural pop keeper "A.M." Strangely enough, the album almost seemed to have an Uncle Tupelo nod. "Feel the Pain" lifts the jerky riff from Tupelo's "Factory Belt" (on "No Depression"), and the album title is also taken from that song's line "don't want to go to the grave without a sound," which is definitely a line J Mascis can identify with. Mascis would do well to go all out attacking one style in the future instead of blending two like straight pop and country shuffle. One almost wishes Mascis would spring for an orchestra and write and record a pop classic. He already has mastered pop melodies and percussive dynamics. A big produced pop record would prove this. Perhaps now (1998) that he's given up Dinosaur he'll get more musically adventurous.

I love this album. There's hardly a bad song on here. I still can't figure out why people think this album is not very good. In all honesty. you really can't go wrong with any Dino Jr. album - so even if it DID suck (which it doesn't, I assure you), it would still be Dinosaur Jr., and better than most music out there today. "Feel the Pain" was the song that made me discover Dinosaur Jr., so I guess I owe all the credit to this album right here.

Pick it up, you won't be sorry.

Too bad everyone is too cool to enjoy this album on its own merits. Basically a solo album, J Mascis plays nearly all the instruments on a sturdy and enjoyable batch of original tunes. The songs may have more of an amber glow to them than the SST albums (recently remastered and brought back into print by Merge), which tended to be more spat out and propulsive. But the songs, performances, and production here are consistently good. The amount of derision heaped on this album should have been saved for some other, truly deserving awful record.

Oh well, the hipsters' loss is your gain. I foresee the songs from this album being revisited and covered by other artists in the near future. They lend themselves well to a wide variety of styles.

Pick this one up from the dollar bin and enjoy!

Where You Been and this one are the only Dino Jr albums I own and I like them both. However, since critics seem to get an abnormal pleasure chewing this one up, I decided I needed to defend it.
First of all, J. Mascis comes up with the most creative guitar riffs that I have ever heard. He uses a combination of quirky rhythms and finger blistering guitar solos to create some of the most original rock music ever recorded. His guitar style has gone so far as to even influence the guitar geniuses in Sonic Youth who admit that their song "Teen Age Riot" (off of Daydream Nation) would not have turned out the same way without their acquaintance of J. Mascis.
More importantly, the songs on this record tend to sound similar but if you've listened to the album enough, you can always tell what song you're listening to at any given point whether your ear is engaged in the slow trudgy riffing of "Get Out of This" or the the hazy melody of "Mind Glow."

Mascis does a good job of mixing up the tempos of the songs and even throwing in some calmer acoustic songs like "Outta Hand" and "Seemed Like the Thing To Do." My personal favorites are "Even You" and the closer "Over Your Shoulder" which usually has me on the verge of tears every time I listen to it.
Where You Been might be a better album and its opener, "Out There" might be the best Dino song ever, but this record doesn't get the credit it deserves.

PS. Despite what you might have heard, Mascis does not sacrifice any of his fretboard skills to concentrate on his vocals, seeing as the same Neil-Young-on-too-many-drugs-at-once guitar solos are still present on this record as well.

Ok, I admit this isn't my favorite "Dinosaur Jr." album, but it's still pretty good. Who cares if it doesn't sound like their very oldest stuff. This does include possibly their/his biggest hit "Feel The Pain", not to mention other great pop-grunge tracks like "Outta Hand" and "Mind Glow". Plus one of their best mellow songs is on here also, "Seemed Like The Thing To Do". I'd actually suggest this to old fans and newcomers alike. Plus some of the artwork is by "Woody Jackson".

This is a response to the ignorant, moneygrubbing hypocrites that are selling the vinyl version of this recording between $94 and $145.00. What Dinosaur Jr. fan, do you think, has enough money to spend this much on ONE slab of vinyl? I don't, for one. Dinosaur Jr. were, and still are, one of the finest bands of the '80s post-punk era and everything their music stands for goes against this kind of commercialism. Even when they went "major", they still retained their underground musical sensibilities and to exploit their fans by weaving this under their noses like a carrot that can never be tasted is unforgivable. I believe J. Mascis would agree with me.

This was my first Dinosaur JR CD and one of my first CD's period so I have found memories. I bought it mainly for the song "Feel The Pain" which starts off the CD. It's a now classic mid nineties indierock song with some great breaks and speed changes. If any of the songs by J Mascis might ever have been a big hit this is the song. There are some other good songs, mostly in the beginning like "I Don't Think So" and "Grab It".

If you already own some Dinosaur JR records and like them you should get this. If you are interested in the later Dinosaur and don't own anything yet get 'Where You Been'

I'm new to the land of Dinosaur Jr still, but I can't say this album is terrible. It's still good stuff, but not all too original. It kind of just runs the same lines of the last "Where You Been", which isn't a bad thing..."WYB" is a sweet album and so is "Bug"...those are the only Dino albums I've heard so far. Chances are if you liked "Where You Been"...you'll like this one also.

Another thing about this album is that it includes one of the singles "Feel the Pain". This is the only Dinosaur Jr song I've heard on the radio in my area and if you're new to Dino Jr, this is a good album that will really impress if you're new to Dino Jr, with the single, awesome acoustics "Outta Hand" and "Seemed Like the Thing to Do", the blistering "Grab it" and the sweet sincere songs "I Don't Think So" and "Mind Glow". You can find this album for cheap too...I found it for a dollar!

I'm not too familiar with this band's history or their other records. For whatever reason, all I've ever heard about them is criticism, and every used CD store I go to is full of Dinosaur Jr discs. Maybe I just have poor taste, but I like what I hear on this album. Good grungy power pop with some of the raddest and most melodic soloing I've ever heard. One of the best guitar albums of the nineties, I'd venture to say. Aside from the incredible "Feel The Pain" and the slowed down "Out of Hand", nothing particularly stands out, but every song has a nice hook and is genius in its simplicity. A nice album that treads the ground between Nirvana and Foo Fighters, with some early nineties indie rock thrown in.

That was a weird day. I walked right into a used CD store and picked up Dinosaur Jr.'s "Without a sound". Now the thing that made this odd was the fact that I had never heard Dino's music, but only of the band. Good things were being said about it so I went and bought it, being sure I could return it if it sucked. well I never needed to do that. This one was a keeper big time and it molded me into a Dinosaur Jr. fan for life. True, many would cringe at J. Mascis' singing but you have to look and hear past this. If you do you will find that almost ever song on "Without a sound" is a gem. The album starts off with "Feel The Pain", a song that starts out with a pop (literally) and then moves on to evolve into a classic grunge song, with an exceptional melody. The next track "I Don't Think So" is probably the most user friendly. This pessimistic love song works well, and is one of the best on the album. But the title of best is saved for the rocking tune "Grab It". This song rocks. It starts off with a powerful, all-out distorted guitar solo smooshed in with banging drums and rhythm guitar. The chorus is both played with and sung with a lot of emotion. To end the album off is the up and down song "Over Your Shoulder". Its a dark yet noisy song which is a good finish to the album. It represents in general what this Dinosaur Jr. CD sounds like. All-in-all thumbs up to Dino's 94' release. Without a doubt, "Without A Sound" is worth grabbing.