#455 Sonic Youth - Sister

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If I told you I wasn't that big on Daydream Nation* would you lose all faith in me? Sonic Youth has always played with texture and noise, has always endulged in chords without names, configurations of strings that ought not to be played together. If you don't play guitar, try this some time: hold down four strings in some random configuration and strum them; fully half the time you'll think "that sounds like something out of a Sonic Youth song". Daydream Nation was their biggest one, the moment when they seemed to go from art punk to Art punk, aspiring to Velvet Undergound heights, when the song lengths stretched, when every screech seemed Loveless-perfectly placed. There were screeches and squalls and screams, but they seemed designed to impress-via-offending rather than truly offend.

I never did hear this, nor EVOL, their pre-daydream output. The energy is different here, more sincerely bent, the noise intended to actually be confrontational, while Daydream Nation seems comparatively Kid-A-icy. There's the sound of an actual band here, sometimes clumsy and immediate. The highlight is certainly Pacific Coast Highway, with its noise-drenched, Kim-scrawled squalls bookending a floating piece of harmonics.

I can't quite get into Sonic Youth. They are one of the ultimate muso bands, seemingly existing so that guitar players can admire how unusual their approach is, without providing all that much in terms of actual visceral enjoyment. My insane review of Gas notwithstanding, I don't necessarily go in for that kind of just-conceptual nonsense. This is a good crunchy, noisy album, admirable to be sure, but I'm left with little reason to actually listen to it 3.5/5

You might like this if: you like dissonant confrontational underground rock. You want a lesson on how noise found its way into modern rock

*Edit: later today I revisited Daydream Nation and I totally appreciate it more than I ever have. What the fuck do I know anyway?