Restraint doesn’t figure into Dinosaur Jr.’s vocabulary. The band is
known for its inexhaustible supply of ego, talent, volume and guitar
noodling as much as frontman J Mascis’ tendency to play it his way or
passive-aggressively disappear offstage to play golf. Farm, the
reformed band’s second album in two years, stays true to form. Songs
stray a little at over four minutes, but who cares? The sound is
energetic—ferocious, almost. Mascis throws around guitar leads and
inconsequential lyrics like giant squid tentacles to Lou Barlow’s
leviathan wall of bass chords. It sounds epic in a station wagon on the
way to the beach with one’s hound in tow.
This article appears in Jun 18-24, 2009.
