http://www.indieworkshop.com/music.php?id=2526
There is nothing I can say that you don't already know about Sonic Youth. There will be writers waxing poetic about their storied career and how much their catalog means to the world of rock and roll at large. But you don't care about that. You know that. All you want to know is whether or not this, their 14th album (is that right? 14?), is any good. To sum it up for you, yes it is.
Being down a man (Jim O'Rourke), Rather Ripped seems to be the Sonic Youth of old. Stripped down, tightly wound art/pop/rock songs that could easily elbow their way on to mainstream alternative radio… if such a thing existed nowadays. Songs like the opener "Reena" will be toppling college radio for months, or at least it should. It burns white hot for a 3:47 minute angular rock track. Acting more as a wormhole to 1992 than a simple Sonic Youth song.
And it just keeps getting better from there. With Gordon and Moore swapping out vocal duties on just about every song, you feel like you are getting a new look every four minutes. Everything is focused and teeming with pop goodness. With only two songs topping the six-minute mark, you feel like the band has exhausted their experimental and meandering tendencies for the time being and we all win because of it. Not because I don't like the amazing forward-thinking moments this group has produced over the years, but because sometimes you just need a kick ass rock song that plays on an endless loop in your mind, and this album has that in quantifiable amounts.
Summer jam of the year? Yeah, so far. This will take you back to when you got your first car and first stumbled across your local college radio station. This is the most aptly titled album so far this year, because it rips rather hard.
- Jake Haselman | 2006-06-13