Over the band’s 28-year career, Sonic Youth has recorded several
landmark albums, a few of which (Sister, Dirty and
Daydream Nation, perhaps the band’s most groundbreaking and
influential masterpiece) continue to be regarded as yardsticks for
anything they subsequently offer. You can now add The Eternal,
their 16th, as another one of those recordings.
From the opening dissonance of the ferocious “Sacred Trickster” (Kim
Gordon’s rasp and wail sounding as feverish as ever), the album never
surrenders a sustained focus and intensity that hasn’t been witnessed
since Daydream Nation. And through the middle two
movements—starting with the big, beautiful “Antenna,” all the way to
the serene noise meditation “Thunderclap for Bobby Pyn”—Sonic Youth
has you firmly by the throat. These middle six tracks are punishing and
relentless. There’s little relief until the album closer “Massage The
History,” a nine-minute anguished epic with its denouement of a single
note bassline and drum beat that gently recedes like a fading
heartbeat.
No doubt, the recent addition of second bassist (ex-Pavement) Mark
Ibold has provided some youthful re-invigoration. But the most
appreciable difference is Steve Shelley’s propulsive drumming—the
catalyst around which these songs (and band members) coalesce.
This article appears in Jun 25 – Jul 1, 2009.