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29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Just like the good ole daze, and maybe a little better..., May 1, 2007
("Beyond" by Dinosaur Jr.)
It's pretty much a fact of life these days that long-broken-up bands will reunite. What's surprising is that many of them have managed to retain the qualities that made them popular to begin with. Sometimes the bands will take the opportunity to reinvent themselves a bit (Wire's '02 comeback Send). Mostly, though, they go for their "original" sound, and usually the "original" songs, of their youth. It didn't really surprise me when Dinosaur Jr. reformed, even with all the personal drama surrounding the band's glimmer twins J. Mascis and Lou Barlow (all of which is beautifully dissected in Michael Azerrad's book Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981-1991). I saw them live not long after the reunion was announced, and even though Mascis' curtain of brown hair had turned into a curtain of gray hair that made him look more like the lead vocalist for a Norwegian Black Metal band, their sound was remarkably consistent from the good ole daze. Fast forward to '07, and would ya believe that the new album is remarkably close in sound and general purpose to albums like the still-incredible Bug? Ultra-loud n' dirty grunge-stomp blues/country/punk, and can I have another solo please?--then add on some sweet, wistful pop melodies just to make things more confusing. It's almost as if the last 19 years never happened (although the post-breakup Dino Jr. albums, not to mention Barlow's influential Sebadoh, are nothing to sneeze at). At least, that's what I thought at first. Upon repeated listens, slight refinements and tweaks can be heard. Chief among these are the number of Mascis' guitar solos. Obviously he realizes his role as a post-punk guitar hero, and this album fills in every available space, and creates new ones, for his beautifully unconventional shredding skills. The second half of the 6 1/2 minute "Pick Me Up" is a joyful celebration of over-amped sloppiness--which is a pretty high compliment in my neck of the woods. While there are no songs here as immediately memorable as "Freak Scene" (which has become an anthem of sorts for alt-rock weirdos like yours truly), songs like the album opener "Almost Ready" come pretty close, and to compound the non-surprises, it might even become more highly enshrined in my musical head-space. Meanwhile, there's the soft ballad "I Got Lost," with its almost jazz-like drumming (all hail Murph, by the way) and washes of plaintive violin, which I don't think the Dino of old was even capable of. Barlow's "Lightning Bulb," one of two contributions from him on the album, reminds us what a great songwriter he always was (Sebadoh proved this), and makes me glad that he and Mascis were able to resolve their personal animosities. All this, and I haven't even mentioned the influence of Neil Young & Crazy Horse--that, then is what makes this album one step Beyond (sorry, I couldn't resist): The good ole daze were never this good!
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Pick This Up, May 6, 2007
Well, Dinosaur Jr are back together and in fine form after only 18 years since `Bug'. One wonders why they waited so long? Maybe with the Jesus and Mary Chain and other great underground acts to gain popularity during the eighties all reforming recently it just seemed like the thing to do? Some naysayers out there might say that after such a long time they are just not the same, but one listen will have you jumping on the wagon and saying yeah right. Now I ain't sayin' that this is as good as `You're Livin' All Over Me' but it's damn close and you should get out and grab it immediately.
Alright that first paragraph was just ridiculously stupid and indulgent. But seriously now, this reunion album is just so amazing I don't know how to tell you other than - like literally EVERYONE has said - it sounds like the last 18 years never happened. The only thing that keeps it from being as good as `Bug' and it's predecessor is the test of time. The guitar playing throughout - riffs, solos, and acoustic - doesn't fall below the quality of the J's best work, at times it's actually way better, and the same goes for the songwriting. The drumming just hasn't been this good ever (probably because J relinquished Nazi-like control over Murph).
"Almost Ready" was of course the first single. It opens the album in typical Dinosaur fashion. It's fast and loud. Murph rides the backbeat perfectly. J's singing is as laconic as ever and his soloing is everywhere. The song actually ends with two solos laid over each other. "Crumble" continues in what I feel could be an even catchier, better single. The guitar riffs are not only happier sounding, but are less crowded than "Almost Ready".
Listening to "Pick Me Up" for the first time, the fast, sludgefesty riffing, the great lyrics recalling the years ("I been wasted all these years/still the man that disappeared/I been left and I been wronged/and I don't think I belong/am I wrong...all along?"), the cool mellowed-out bridge where it's all laid out ("did I need you/all the while/I can't stop/it's always been/I feel useless/you just smile/can I scream/am I hurt/am I still wasted/am I still burnt/can I bend/to your will/y'know I need to/have a plan...") and then the solo takes over for the next three straight minutes and it is no exaggeration to tell you that you have never heard anything like this out of J on any recording, ever. On this solo I'd put Mascis up there against any of the greats. The first listen to this song, for any Dino fan, is nothing short of what a born again Christian must feel when they're born again.
"This Is All I Came to Do" is another one of Dinosaur Jr's best songs. Beginning right off the bat with a frenetic solo that leads into the slacker-anthem lyrics "take my problems/take me anyplace/take my mi-mi-mind as well/I been tryin/I got nothing else/it's down to you/as you can tell" it blossoms into a great little rock song with a really catchy, slacker-themed chorus and typically amazing solos.
"It's Me" starts with the biggest drum sound the original trio have ever conjured. It's joined by the murky swamp of J pounding the E string, punctuated with shimmery, sustained bar chords. "We're Not Alone" turns the focus slightly more on the country than the ear bleeding, as the music starts to become more melodic (at least on J's songs) from here to the end of the album - and in a completely good way. This song also has a solo to rival "Pick Me Up". "I Got Lost" takes it one step further with J singing in his "Not the Same" falsetto and is an entirely acoustic mellow ballad.
So after listening to this album now for about the 15th time in less than a week, it's still up there with the original three albums. It's almost as if they band had been hibernating and reawakened still fully formed, ready to shake off that cold with some hair-raising rock like you have not heard in a while. This is better than the Raconteurs, White Stripes, or any of that new revival garage rock, even as much as I love it. If you never heard Dinosaur Jr before, now is the time to start listening.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Better than we had any right to expect -- essential even for the nonfan, March 27, 2008
Like most fans of Dinosaur Jr. from the old days, I had no expectation that this album would be one of their best. I was psyched to hear that the band was going to do a new album after the unanticipated reunion and tour of the original line up, but while the idea of them playing their old material live was exciting, I figured that like most bands that had reunited, their new material would be interesting at best and more probably just a tad sad. Instead, we got a shockingly good album.
And J. Mascis is back. I'd heard some of his post-DJ solo work and while some of it was somewhat interesting, I was never blown away like I had been with YOU'RE LIVING ALL OVER ME, BUG, or GREEN MIND. And his guitar playing just stopped having the same kind of fire that it had had with those albums. That was tragic because I thought Mascis one of the greatest guitarists of the eighties, maybe the greatest guitarist of the late eighties. His playing on this new album shows him completely and utterly back in form.
You have to understand that when I was a kid (imagine the latter as said by Walter Brennan), me and my friends would engage in savage arguments about the various guitar gods. We'd play and replay solos by Rory Gallagher or Roy Buchanan or Phil Keaggy (who proved that you could be a born again Christian and still play the guitar) or he who was Hendrix and debate their pros and cons, insisting on the merits of this guitar deity over that one. We'd almost come to blows over Clapton versus Allman on LAYLA. Hearing Mascis's best solos on this album makes me want to contact my old college music buddies and kindle a new debate. This is without question some of the best guitar playing you'll ever hear. It isn't the best song on the album, but the long guitar solo that starts at the 3:34 mark of "Pick Me Up" and lasts precisely the last three minutes of the cut goes on my short list of the greatest guitar solos I've ever heard. Mascis plays not merely as if his life depended upon his playing, but something greater, like the future of Western Civilization or the existence of joy. When I was a kid would-be guitarists would carefully reconstruct and practice Jimmy Page's solos. Aspiring guitarists today could do no better than memorize and master ever note of "Pick Me Up." It'd be a chore, but by the end you'd be a really decent guitarist.
One reason Mascis's playing stands out on this album is that in this mix the guitarist is brought completely to the forefront. On a lot of classic albums the guitar was obviously present, but it would sometimes not stand out from the rest of the stuff going on. "Grunge" really did apply to it. There is a clarity here often lacking in the past. The playing here is really in-your-face and all the better for it.
But this album is more than Mascis's complete return to form as a guitar god; it is a killer collection of songs. A couple of the cuts are weak toward the end, but even those have some interesting moments. And a few of the songs are just extraordinary, like the opening number, "Almost Ready." My favorite part of the album, however, is probably the back-to-back-to-back-to back of "Pick Me Up," "Back to Your Heart," "This is All I Came to Do" (with some really splendid playing by Mascis), and "Been There All the Time."
This is just a great album but I do have the same complaint that I had with the first appearance of Dinosaur Jr. and also Lou Barlow's various projects like Sebadoh is the cruddy singing. You'd think that writers as good as Mascis and Barlow would result in at least one person with some minimal ability to sing, but no such luck. Here is my test for singing in a rock band: they have to be better than me. They are not. So hey guys, sign me up! You'd sound better. Seriously, I can't understand how a band with this much talent could be vocally deficient.
This is just a must-get album. I'm really tempted to call this the best reunion album ever. I'd have to think about that some more to stand by that statement, but if it isn't the best it has to be in the top two or three.
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