Cover Art: Sea Monster by John Fahey
I think it’s safe to say that every review you’re gonna read for this album will mention the fact that Sonic Youth are back on an independent (Matador) after years and years of being controlled by evil major label tycoon David Geffen. This is all just silly really. “The Eternal” sounds like most other recent Sonic Youth albums proving that either it never mattered what label they were on or that they’re still somewhat under Geffen’s evil spell. The only real question is; do you like Sonic Youth? If you do, you will probably like “The Eternal”. If you’ve never heard Sonic Youth, start with either “Daydream Nation” or “Dirty”. And if you never liked Sonic Youth, you should probably just stop reading now. For my money I think the best of their recent albums leading up to this is “Sonic Nurse”. I know “Rather Ripped” got really good press, but for me it was just missing whatever it is that makes a great Sonic Youth album (this is hard to pin down after 16 or so albums).
First and foremost what I like about this album is that Matador released it as a “Buy Early Get Now” or BEGN if you’re into the whole brevity thing. Basically you pre-order the album and get a ton of goodies in the process. You get a couple exclusive tracks to download in MP3 and/or FLAC format (for us audio nerds). You get an early stream of the album. You get a free poster (it’s actually a pretty sweet). You get a semi-exclusive 12” Sonic Youth live album. You get the option to buy tickets to see them before they go on sale to the public. Oh yeah and they send you “The Eternal” too. I for one really dig the BEGN thing. I also did it for Stephen Malkmus’ last album, and Pavement’s “Brighten The Corners” expanded reissue. And while we’re speaking of Pavement let’s move on to another thing about “The Eternal” that I am really excited about. Mark Ibold, formally of Pavement (one of my other favorite bands), is Sonic Youth’s newest member.
Sonic Youth initially were lumped in with the early 80s No Wave movement in New York, and since then they’ve been considered Punk, Alternative, Noise, Grungy, Avant-Garde, etc at other stages of their career. I think it’s safe to say they’re a genre unto themselves at this point. Kim Gordon, husband Thurston Moore, and Lee Renaldo all sing, all play guitar and all bring something a little different to the table that makes pinning down their sound that much more difficult. Kim is either dreamy or enraged. Songs that start off as three minute punkers end up as ten minute opuses. Lazy jams break out into distorted noise riots. Thurston and Renaldo sometime channel Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground and other times Johnny Thunders or namesake Fred “Sonic” Smith of the MC5. “The Eternal” showcases all of this.
Initially Brother P and I listened to the pre-sale stream of this while looking up pictures of high school crush Kim Gordon on Google images. I think we were both a little too pre-occupied at that point to render a verdict. Our listening party ended abruptly when we came across a picture of Kim Thayil and started laughing our asses off to the point where we abandoned ship and put on Fugazi’s “In On the Kill Taker” instead (FSS’s favorite Fugazi album and one of our next reviews too… keep a lookout). Since that night though, I’ve had a little more time to sit with this album. Unless I absolutely hate something from the start I generally like to listen to a record a bunch of times before reviewing it. What I’ve found is that “The Eternal” blows “Rather Ripped” out of the water. Is it the best Sonic Youth album? No. Is it worth buying? Yes. Spend some time with this album at a high volume and I think you’ll agree. Unless of course you never liked them in the first place, in which case I told you to stop reading this review in the first paragraph and you should’ve listened.
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