Rockin' Our Turntable: Sonic Youth

By Tankboy in Arts & Entertainment on Jun 23, 2009 3:20PM

Sonic Youth is the picture of consistently. They're been releasing fine albums of music that could only be attributed to them for so long it's easy to lose sight of what an unfailingly excellent band they are. The group has spanned decades and continually releasing stuff that indicates their instruments still have plenty of noise to wring out and bleed all over the stage. It's remarkable.

So it's understandable that even if the band refuses to rest its listeners may have become complacent in recent years. It's easy to take a group like Sonic Youth for granted when they never really let you down. The Eternal continues that trend with twelve songs that don't really deviate from the Sonic Youth mold. Instead they fire up the blast furnace to release their most concise and musical disc in years without compromising the band's masterful touches of restrained chaos. "Leaky Lifeboat (For Gregory Corso)" and "Sacred Trickster" continue the band's tradition of creating songs that would fit in a 45 RPM fed jukebox in the 4th dimension, the melodies beg you to hum along while being constructed in such a way to make actually doing so impossible (or at the very least, uncomfortable).

Elsewhere they allow songs to spool slowly outward as on "Massage The History" or whirl in on themselves eating away at the structure from the inside as on "Calming The Snake," which howls through fractals of tree branches, ripping itself to shreds as it wafts to a close. This is a collection that puts a slight bit more pressure behind the groups punch, and sharpens its attack by the tiniest of increments. These increases create more sonic P.S.I. creating forcing The Eternal to once again raise the impossibly high stakes of a band continuing to prove their footing is sure and their minds remain ever nimble.

Sonic Youth plays this weekend at The Vic, 3145 N Sheffield, June 27 is 18+ at 7 p.m., June 28 is all ages at 8 p.m., tickets for both nights are $29