[ZEROpumpkins]

Originally Posted by Moshe

Thanks to Bobbyjames23

http://www.comfortcomes.com/?page=reviews&id=1003

The long awaited new album from the masters of underground rock is here. Everything you might expect from Sonic Youth is here. Complex twisting riffs, the classic guitar strum, artistic and at times confusing lyrics shared by Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon. However, those expecting a radical musical movement out of this album will be disappointed. Those expecting some classic Sonic Youth jams will not be.

The best track on the album from an musical standpoint is "Pink Steam," which is pure instrumentals for 5 out of the 6 total minutes. It is full of the skilled guitar playing Sonic Youth is known for, along with the half laid back feel of the rhythm section. The solos are excellent, adding a touch of distortion there and a touch of fuzz here, showing obvious maturity and musical skill, and creating a pure instrumental gem. Leave this one on repeat.

The entire album has a laid back feel, making it almost dull. "Jams Run Free" is slow moving, uneasy, and laced with Gordon’s stretched voice. "Lights Out" is the same way: slow moving and eerie. Finally there’s "Rats" which is again quieter, but has hints of The Doors, both in the vocals and instrumentals. Odd to hear from Sonic Youth, but odd is what Sonic Youth is about isn’t it?

Don’t come to "Rather Ripped" looking for a roller coaster ride of underground bliss, but late at night when the lights get turned low and you’re recovering from a long day, pop this in. The slow moving songs have a beauty to them, the lyrics are an enigma to unravel, and an ear can easily find a guitar note there, or a vocal croon here that sends shivers down the spine. A slow burner from Sonic Youth, but one that burns well.

I agree with this guy

[Moshe]

http://www.playlouder.com/review/+rather-ripped/
Rather Ripped
Sonic Youth



4/5

A quarter of a century on from their inception in a furious blizzard of New York art noise Sonic Youth still live up to the noun in their name. Live, Thurston Moore brims with youthful enthusiasm, flopping his blonde locks around, clambering up speaker stacks and gadding about like a public school boy playing rockstars. Kim Gordon still looks incredible in attire most commonly suited to Top Shop girls, while the band's adherence to a DIY aesthetic continues to convey the enthusiasm of a stamp-collecting teenage nerd.

So what's interesting about 'Rather Ripped' is how Sonic Youth have at once made their most mature album, yet left none of their trademark edginess on the cutting room floor. It's worth noting, though, that the praise being lauded on 'Rather Ripped' over any of Sonic Youth's album's over the past few years is perhaps misguided. This isn't necessarily a superior album to 'Murray Street' or 'Sonic Nurse' (though it's certainly a more consistent one), it's more that 'Rather Ripped's great success is in refining the strengths of those records to something at once accessible and challenging.

This is done through the recurrent musical methodology of 'Rather Ripped' - and it's one that makes the album's buff title rather appropriate. For the likes of 'What A Waste' and 'The Neutral' a simple skin of guitar melody is locked tight to Kim Gordon's vocal line as the rhythm section plays a rippling and muscular groove beneath, while in the chorus Sonic Youth allow themselves the modicum of messing around with distortion.

The vocals (indeed, Moore and Gordon's almost meditative tones are superb throughout 'Rather Ripped') drive 'Do You Believe In Rapture?' to be as reflective as Sonic Youth have ever been, while 'Jams Run Free' positively skips along with a jovial lightness before the last thirty seconds are dappled with restrained, yet insistent, guitar murmer. 'Rats', meanwhile, is built around a dense back wall of growling feedback, atop which a dappled melody is allowed to sprawl.

And of course, 'Rather Ripped' takes some fine wanders into the twilight. The six-minute 'Turquoise Boy' builds gradually until, when you're least expecting it, Sonic Youth unleash a driven, howling crescendo, Steve Shelley's drums tumping moodily in the background. It's followed by 'Lights Out', which sees Thurston murmuring dark threats, while penultimate track 'Pink Steam' is another longer, furious- sounding number.

The only weak spot is the final track 'Or', where Sonic Youth finally succumb to the cliché of having a bit of a moan about the day job, with Moore wearily reciting a list of dumb questions PlayLouder's lesser contemporaries all-too-frequently fling at them: "What comes first? The music or the words?"

But this concluding blip aside 'Rather Ripped' is the most accomplished and mature album Sonic Youth have done in years. And while some might grumble that this new-found sense of calm (and, indeed, a peculiar absence of pretension) is too much of a concession to the mainstream, they can always took to any of the band's challenging side-projects for more malignant diversions. And it's interesting that this album is Sonic Youth's final obligation for Geffen. Could 'Rather Ripped' be a graceful bowing out of the mainstream, before an onslaught from the incredible hulk of their avant-garde inclinations?

Luke Turner

[Moshe]

http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/m...icle623334.ece

Album: Sonic Youth

 

Rather Ripped, GEFFEN

By Andy Gill

Published: 02 June 2006



Back to a quartet again with the departure of the sonic auxiliary Jim O'Rourke, Sonic Youth turn in one of their tighter, more focused sets with Rather Ripped, an album named after a celebrated underground comic book. It opens at the catchier end of the SY aesthetic with "Reena", which could almost be a straight-up pop song were it not for the typically oblique changes that lend a peppery edge to its hummability. Indeed, so typical have their once-perverse melodic twists become that it's now possible to predict the course of tracks such as "Jams Run Free" and "Sleepin' Around", the way their serpentine tunes habitually take the odd route through flats and sharps, favouring the bitter over the sweet. As "What a Waste" suggests, with its echoes of "Hong Kong Garden", it's a trope traceable to the early Banshees, here elected to a compositional principle. When it works, the effect is bracing, as in the blend of plaintive vocal, guitar harmonics and churning noise that makes up "Do You Believe In Rapture?", or the astringent combination of arpeggios and smouldering lead guitar in "Turquoise Boy"; but elsewhere, "Pink Steam" is a chugger, and "Incinerate" follows a drier, more methodical course.
DOWNLOAD THIS: 'Reena', 'Do You Believe in Rapture?', 'Turquoise Boy'

Back to a quartet again with the departure of the sonic auxiliary Jim O'Rourke, Sonic Youth turn in one of their tighter, more focused sets with Rather Ripped, an album named after a celebrated underground comic book. It opens at the catchier end of the SY aesthetic with "Reena", which could almost be a straight-up pop song were it not for the typically oblique changes that lend a peppery edge to its hummability. Indeed, so typical have their once-perverse melodic twists become that it's now possible to predict the course of tracks such as "Jams Run Free" and "Sleepin' Around", the way their serpentine tunes habitually take the odd route through flats and sharps, favouring the bitter over the sweet. As "What a Waste" suggests, with its echoes of "Hong Kong Garden", it's a trope traceable to the early Banshees, here elected to a compositional principle. When it works, the effect is bracing, as in the blend of plaintive vocal, guitar harmonics and churning noise that makes up "Do You Believe In Rapture?", or the astringent combination of arpeggios and smouldering lead guitar in "Turquoise Boy"; but elsewhere, "Pink Steam" is a chugger, and "Incinerate" follows a drier, more methodical course.

[Moshe]

http://www.thelmagazine.com/4/11/mus...w4.cfm?ctype=2

Sonic YouthRather Ripped (Geffen)By Peter D’Angelo

 

Within the first five seconds of Rather Ripped, Sonic Youth fans who’ve felt completely ripped off by their last few releases are likely to breathe a sigh of relief. In the album opener, ‘Reena,’ there’s a beat, there’s a solid melodic riff, and there’s Kim Gordon singing — not whispering or screaming, but performing an actual structured song. It’s followed by ‘Incinerate’, a slowly drawled Thurston Moore number that sits amid wonderfully sunny guitar melodies. And that’s when it kicks in— more so than on any work they’ve released in the last ten years, Sonic Youth have once again come off as a completely solid and relevant band. Instead of a noisy estimate of the defining moments in some lost Branca symphony, Rather Ripped harkens back to the divinely melodic guitar rock era of Experimental Jet Set, Washing Machine, and even Dirty. For a band known as much for their noisy musical advances as they are for their longevity, a smart, late-career take on pop music could most certainly play out as a total disaster. Instead it’s a high-minded success that finds its greatest moments in songs like the subtly political should-be-a-single ‘Do You Believe In Rapture?’, the spacey Lee Ranaldo tweak-out of ‘Rats’, and the droning exit music of ‘Or’.

Fifteen years ago a second wave of fans were getting introduced to Sonic Youth through their first bits of mass-exposure and a number of records on which they reigned in their at times unwieldy experimental sounds and helped redefine the way folks looked at mainstream rock. Many of those who discovered that music traced it back, discovering its roots in pure sonic experimentation and a world of outsider sounds. Sonic Youth still stand at that gateway, and if they can put out a record like this every few years, the rest of the world may someday learn the true value of all the noise that spawned them — and more importantly, all the noise they spawned.

[Moshe]

http://www.thephoenix.com/article_ektid14056.aspx
Sonic Youth


Rather Ripped | Geffen
By: NICK SYLVESTER

6/6/2006 9:44:18 AM

 

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DAYDREAM NOTIONS: There’s less teenage riot and more pinpoint dissonance on Sonic Youth’s best since ’95’s Washing Machine. We’re allowed to like albums about getting old but never being old, so I don’t know why this one works — SY’s most openly “mature” disc, possibly their best since ’95’s Washing Machine, maybe even the almighty Daydream Nation. The clean, nimble strumming that opens “Reena” and Kim Gordon’s first belt (“You keep me coming home again”) and the way she holds the “gain” of “again” instead of letting the note resolve really couldn’t serve as a better proem: less teenage riot, more pinpoint dissonance; fewer facefucking abstractions, more hand-in-hand face-to-face. Two songs later, Thurston Moore asks, “Do you believe in a second chance?” Hell if I know what adult-oriented themes he’s hitting on — this is a ballad, by the way — but for the first time maybe ever, I wish I did. What’s funny is that Moore goes the opposite direction, too. “I tore your heart out from your chest/Replaced it with a grenade blast,” he sings in “Incinerate,” whose billowing guitars would pass for Dinosaur Jr.’s before SY’s. I’d call it bad high-school poetry if it weren’t so perfectly bad — as if SY were artifying high-school poetry, turning it into its own genre, something I’ve thought all along. No wonder Geffen reissued their first albums this year.

[Moshe]

I don't like this one:

http://torontosun.com/Entertainment/...25454-sun.html
By BILL HARRIS, TORONTO SUN

3 1/2 out of 5




Expectations were low as Sonic Youth's Rather Ripped slipped into the CD player.
First of all, it's hard to believe Sonic Youth still is putting out new studio CDs after a full quarter-century as a band. What more could they have to say, musically or lyrically, that they couldn't have said by, say, 1996?
And, second of all, Sonic Youth always has been a tad overrated, at least to our ears. Even in their heyday in the late 1980s and early 1990s, they weren't as daring as some of their alt-rock contemporaries, and also not as accessible as the more mainstream grunge acts of the day.
So imagine our shock and surprise that Rather Ripped doesn't suck.
Embracing melody more than in their past, Sonic Youth -- which champions itself as being in something called "nucleus formation" with Thurston Moore on guitar and vocals, Kim Gordon on bass and vocals, Lee Ranaldo on guitar and vocals, and Steve Shelley on drums -- rarely has sounded more comfortable and coolly confident.

Of the 12 songs here, it's fair to say too many of them are of the mid-tempo variety. But none of them are outright stinkers, and a couple of the sparse ones jump above the fray.
The third song is called Do You Believe In Rapture?, and that rhetorical question apparently was in the running to be the title of this CD. Regardless, the song is set to a hypnotic heartbeat march and the stark guitar harmonics straddle the line between grating and grandeur.
At only 3 minutes and 11 seconds, Do You Believe In Rapture? leaves you wanting more. But that's a good thing.
Also irresistible in a weird, Velvet Underground sort of way is the closing track, Or. The final pulsating verse seemingly presents a list of all the inane questions veteran rock bands have endured from wide-eyed (or bleary-eyed) fans, over and over and over again:
"How long's the tour?
"What time you guys playin'?
"Where you goin' next?
"What comes first ... the music ... orrrrrrr ... the words?"
The word "or" is accentuated and elongated in a breathless manner that expresses both weariness and acceptance.
Those two songs are personal favourites, but there are other good moments, too.
Gordon -- whose voice sounds more like Nico's with each passing year -- is a little scary as she barks out the chorus to What A Waste ("What a waste, you're so chaste, I can't wait, to taste your face"). Uh, don't we want to share a soda with two straws first?
And the song Rats could have served as the theme to the movie Willard (at least it may have worked better than Michael Jackson's Ben). With Jimi Hendrix-style instrumentation setting the spooky tone, the lyrics go, "When the rats run riot, and the screen door slams, when the trees grow quiet, nothing but cats and cans."
We have absolutely no idea what that means, but it accurately describe the sensation of staggering home drunk at 4 in the morning. Maybe that's how the title Rather Ripped materialized.
Back when Sonic Youth was youthful, it's unlikely the members of the group ever imagined they still would be making records in 2006.
Sonic Youth certainly could have retired long before now, and no one would have minded. But if they still can produce CDs as listenable as Rather Ripped, there's absolutely no harm in extending this Sonic Middle Age. ---

[dirnt61]

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p...0:odq67u5050jk
by Heather Phares
4/5

Considering that Sonic Youth lost Jim O'Rourke and found the custom-tweaked, irreplaceable guitars that were stolen in 1999 before heading into the studio to make Rather Ripped, it seemed that the album could be a big departure from what they'd been doing on Murray Street and Sonic Nurse -- possibly a return to the kind of music they could only make with those instruments, or perhaps an entirely different approach that reflected their revamped, old-is-new-again lineup. Rather Ripped ends up being of a piece with their previous two albums, and often plays like a stripped-down, slightly less-inspired Sonic Nurse. Once again, Kim Gordon contributes some of the best tracks here; "Reena" and "Jams Run Free" are equal parts dreamy and driving, while "The Neutral" is a sweet, low-key love song. Thurston Moore contributes a gently but powerfully political track à la Sonic Nurse's "Peace Attack" with "Do You Believe in Rapture?," a reflection on peace and apocalypse that's mostly serene, even if the guitar harmonics throughout the song add shivers of doubt and tension. "Rats" is a standard-issue Lee Ranaldo song, freewheeling and poetic (and with lines like "Let me place you in my past/With other precious toys," it has the sharpest lyrics on Rather Ripped), even if it's not quite as amazing as the previous album's "New Hampshire." Rather Ripped's rock songs are solid, but not amazing -- the interplay of Moore's and Ranaldo's guitars and Steve Shelley's drumming are the best things about "Sleepin' Around" and "What a Waste." Actually, the more atmospheric songs end up being some of the most compelling. "Lights Out" reeks of whispery, late-night cool, and the closing track, "Or," is one of the sparest and most oddly unsettling songs Sonic Youth has done in a while (not to mention a reminder that quiet doesn't always mean peaceful in this band's world). Rather Ripped is also surprisingly lean, with the songs on its first half feeling so tightly structured that they seem like radio edits. Only "Turquoise Boy" and "Pink Steam" really open up and deliver Sonic Youth's famously sprawling, jam-based sound. If Rather Ripped is a tiny bit disappointing, it's only because the band's playing outpaces their songwriting ever so slightly. It's a solidly good album, and if taken as part of a trio of albums with Sonic Nurse and Murray Street, it shows that Sonic Youth is still in a comfortable yet creative groove, not a rut.

[Moshe]

http://www.tinymixtapes.com/musicrev...onic_youth.htm
Rather Ripped
Geffen, 2006
rating: 3/5
reviewer: grigsby

Being born a bit too late and without the proper context, I really can't say that Daydream Nation is my favorite SY album. Sure, I'll acknowledge that it is likely the most significant, and also that it is truly great, but my favorite? Not really. While Murray Street and Sonic Nurse aren't necessarily my favorites either, I found both to be immensely satisfying, showing that the band was still willing to extend its grasp, succeeding brilliantly.

Reaching for something is precisely the opposite of what's happening on Rather Ripped. Instead, SY have focused inward toward the songs. It turns out, though, that this isn't their greatest strength. They've always been about taking songs into outer space, not writing the most slammin' pop songs. Rather Ripped, then, harkens back to that much maligned, but still pretty dang decent, SY album, Experimental, Jet Set, Trash, and No Star. That too was the Youth at their most tame and song-oriented.

I seem to be forgetting something, though. Oh, that's right, this is gosh darned Sonic Youth we're talking about. They write better music in their sleep than most bands ever will. Just check out the opener "Reena." This is SY channeled into pure energy. "Pink Steam" is fantastic, though perhaps because it sounds like a streamlined version of the Murray Street template. The problem is that these songs just don't weigh in like SY greats really should. They're not underwritten – it's more the case that they need to be a bit overwritten.

So, to take it back to context for a moment: if Rather Ripped had come on the heels of NYC Ghosts and Flowers, it would be rightly hailed as a comeback. Instead, it is coming after two albums I would not hesitate to call "classics." By comparison, Rather Ripped comes off as a collection of good-and-great songs, but it just isn't up there with their best.

[whorefrost]

Originally Posted by Moshe

http://www.tinymixtapes.com/musicrev...onic_youth.htm
Rather Ripped
Geffen, 2006
rating: 3/5
reviewer: grigsby

Being born a bit too late and without the proper context, I really can't say that Daydream Nation is my favorite SY album. Sure, I'll acknowledge that it is likely the most significant, and also that it is truly great, but my favorite? Not really. While Murray Street and Sonic Nurse aren't necessarily my favorites either, I found both to be immensely satisfying, showing that the band was still willing to extend its grasp, succeeding brilliantly.

Reaching for something is precisely the opposite of what's happening on Rather Ripped. Instead, SY have focused inward toward the songs. It turns out, though, that this isn't their greatest strength. They've always been about taking songs into outer space, not writing the most slammin' pop songs. Rather Ripped, then, harkens back to that much maligned, but still pretty dang decent, SY album, Experimental, Jet Set, Trash, and No Star. That too was the Youth at their most tame and song-oriented.

I seem to be forgetting something, though. Oh, that's right, this is gosh darned Sonic Youth we're talking about. They write better music in their sleep than most bands ever will. Just check out the opener "Reena." This is SY channeled into pure energy. "Pink Steam" is fantastic, though perhaps because it sounds like a streamlined version of the Murray Street template. The problem is that these songs just don't weigh in like SY greats really should. They're not underwritten – it's more the case that they need to be a bit overwritten.

So, to take it back to context for a moment: if Rather Ripped had come on the heels of NYC Ghosts and Flowers, it would be rightly hailed as a comeback. Instead, it is coming after two albums I would not hesitate to call "classics." By comparison, Rather Ripped comes off as a collection of good-and-great songs, but it just isn't up there with their best.

i would agree with that review

[dirnt61]

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/record...r-ripped.shtml
Rating: 7.5
-Brandon Stosuy

The title of Sonic Youth's newest album references a defunct Berkeley, Calif., record store, but it's also a fitting description for the band's tautest set in 25 years. As the militaristic stencils on the cover suggest, these 12 tracks add up to one super chiseled physique; critics needn't exaggerate Rather Ripped's concision, though, Sonic Youth manage to sneak in all sorts of noisy accents, oddball tunings, and crescendo transitions into their so-called pop record.

That, and it's a grower. After my initial runs through, I appreciated the pristine guitar sound, but the majority of the songs felt boring (over time hooks bloomed). Yet it also proves that New York's premiere avant-garde group can write catchy tunes without dipping too deeply into its bag of cracked guitar tricks. Doused with sleek and slippery riffs, the album's early succession of propulsive, three-minute art-pop songs is especially strong.

The other most striking aspect of the album is that there are more Kim Gordon tracks than on most recent outings. She makes good use of the face time, turning in her best work since "Kissibility" and "Kool Thing". On "Reena" she reminds someone, presumably husband/bandmate Thurston Moore, that "you keep me coming home again," despite her, uh, intense friendship with another woman. Both it and her "Turquoise Boy" feature brief Glenn Branca-like breakdowns before returning to Lee Ranaldo and Moore's shiny guitar playing. On the slinky "Jams Run Free", Gordon breathily intones, "We love the jams." Rather Ripped has plenty of those.

Moore's first vocal turn comes on the catchy slip'n'slide single "Incinerate." Not an update of Big Black's "Kerosene", it [could] MAY be a love song with over-cooked metaphors or perhaps some actual immolation: "I ripped your heart of your chest/ Replaced it with a grenade blast...you dosed my soul with gasoline/ You flicked a match into my brain."

The strongest track is "Do You Believe in Rapture". Set against a backwash of noise, 16-carat "Bull in the Heather" strums, and the coupling of a lightly thumping drum machine witj Steve Shelley on the real deal, it feels like Daydream Nation's piano burning "Providence" turned inside out by Yo La Tengo. Out of nowhere (or maybe out of one guitar strand), it shifts into pop prettiness.

Somewhere just after the middle of the album, things loose a little oomph, especially on ho-hum tour-diary closer "Or". (Though some of its spare sound does echo "Do You Believe in Rapture".) On it, Moore begins by describing a girl with "canisters of whipped cream" in her "sweater pockets" and ends recounting various fan questions, culminating with the queries: "What comes first? The music or the words?" On this one, it was hopefully the music. There are a couple late-stage keepers: "The Neutral"'s crystalline guitar parts drop like snow (again, it's a Kim track) and the longer "Pink Steam", a slow-build Moore lust song, is gorgeously windswept and violently romantic.

The latter brings up something important: "Pink Steam"'s named after a great collection of diaristic essays, confessional memoirs, and literary tidbits by San Francisco author Dodie Bellamy. I didn't need to look that one up but as a kid, I used Sonic Youth lyrics and liner notes as reading lists-- they led me to Gerhard Richter, Mike Kelley, Richard Kern, Raymond Carver, d.a. levy, and more. They've always been important for bringing downtown NYC's overlapping traditions of art/music/literature to punk kids. Go back to those early records to check out who did the art work for them and read the thank you's. Pre-internet, this was the way to get an underground education.

Talking to Moore recently for Pitchfork, he said noise's popularity and accessibility seems as a good reason as any to create a relatively noise-free album. He's right: Sonic Youth needn't bother impressing folks at this point. That history can also work against them, but it's boring to parade out each classic and see just how Rather Ripped stacks up to it. So, hey, let's just say it's great to hear Kim, Lee, Steve, and Thurston making an album that sounds beautifully invigorated and goes down smoothly.

[silverfreepress (sdasher)]

 

Critics' Choice
New CD's
By BEN RATLIFF
Published: June 12, 2006
Sonic Youth


Readers’ Opinions
Forum: Popular Music

"Rather Ripped" (Geffen)

Sonic Youth is 25, and its 20th album appears tomorrow. You may forget that math, or you may fixate on it. What was Sonic Youth's past, in larger terms, anyway? What did the band stand for, except unorthodox guitar tunings, overtones, conceptual art, popular culture (inasmuch as it could be related to conceptual art), inside jokes, fanzines and — somewhat skeptically — rock 'n' roll?

Perhaps not having the burden of a cause made it easier for Sonic Youth to persist. Certainly it is the rare example of a hard-touring group that often appeared to be having fun: throwing its weight behind new bands with no commercial future (as well as one that did: Nirvana), singing lyrics that have occasionally been pretentious or silly, playing long jams with dissonant gobs of noise, playing new-wavey eighth-note riffs.

Everyone has a different idea of what Sonic Youth's best record is because none are in any way perfect; they all contain various failures. But "Rather Ripped" has a different level of authoritative power. It is a fully legitimate, clear and strong rock 'n' roll record in the band's own style. And it may really be the best one, though one fears that saying it out loud means the band's work is done.

Sonic Youth had its own cloistered sound, defined by its tunings, in the beginning. I remember being fully spooked by all that indirect, ugly-beautiful tonality as a teenager, seeing the band at CBGB in 1983. (The band returns there to play a sold-out show tomorrow night before starting its summer tour.) But Sonic Youth is still here because its four members said yes to so many things: no music within their reach was too goofy or too refined.

As squalid as it liked to sound, overturning standard uses for amplifiers and effects boxes — and with an interest in Cage, Reich, Wolff, Cardew and post-classical music — there was always a classic-rock band inside Sonic Youth, ever since it first got a taste of writing a strong melody. (Those melodies appeared on "Evol," in 1986.)

That classic-rock band is what you hear in a lot of "Rather Ripped," still combining its billowing and liquefying guitar sounds, but condensing and concentrating them.

Here's how it works. On "Jams Run Free," Kim Gordon finishes her psychosexual, color-field lyrics 2 minutes 10 seconds into the song. ("I love the way you move/I hope it's not too late for me/It's too good on this sea/Where the light is green.") Immediately a rhythm-section vamp locks in, and the two guitars go at each other, one playing plinky harmonic tones and one discharging broad vales of fuzz. Thirty seconds later the guitars come together to play five notes in unison and two in harmony; then they pull apart as the drums gallop toward a blastoff, which happens at 3:20, opening into another riff, in a new, hazy, beautiful territory of sound. It's over at 3:50, and wow, it is satisfying.

Ms. Gordon is the glory of this record. For so long she has made her voice breathy and plain, at the edge of losing control, like a possessed Nico. Still, she has been only half there. Over the last 10 years she has become more central — playing more guitar, too, rather than bass — and on "Rather Ripped" she does something unusual: she sings forthrightly and in tune, making "Reena," "Turquoise Boy" and "Jams Run Free" the record's best tracks.

All Sonic Youth albums end with a question mark; this one literally does. Its last track, "Or," rumbles along quietly with an acoustic guitar and no climax. It has the purposeless atmosphere of a song that could drag on for 20 minutes, but it is brought home in 3½, ending with Thurston Moore's recitation of the kind of questions he probably hears a lot: "How long is the tour?/What time you guys playing?/Where you going next?/What comes first? The music? Or the words?" BEN RATLIFF

[finding nobody]

Sonic Youth go pop?! Oh yes. And it's rather good.

Perhaps, Sonic Youth have never sounded so much like everyone else around them than they have here. A couple of moments even struck as being vaguely Snow Patrol-esque. Certainly, the lead guitar throughout is bluesy, melodic, and thoroughly normal - not what you'd expect from these noiseniks. Noise throughout is kept in check, and used sparingly as a weapon rather than a bedrock - see the second verse of the excellent "Do You Believe In Rapture"? And songs. There are 12 honest-to-God songs here! Songs that could appear on any (good) album! Songs that could easily be reinvented as acoustic numbers! Don't come looking for a "Mote" or a "Ghost Bitch".

The opening trio of "Reena", "Incinerate", and "Do You Believe In Rapture?" set out the stall right from the off, and are the highpoint of the album. In fact, the understated, lovely "Incinerate" might be the band's strongest tune since "100%".

So Sonic Youth have never been so easy to like, so thoroughly normal. If you think a band maturing like this constitutes 'selling out' (whatever that means) then don't bother looking this one up. Everyone else can rest assured that this is still the same band that made Goo, and their idiosyncracies bring a power to these songs that a lesser band wouldn't have been able to achieve (just look to "Rats", Ranaldo's sole contribution, for an example of that).

This band will likely never top what they did over the course of the four albums stretching from Sister to [i[Dirty[/i]. And that's fine. They certainly don't disgrace themselves with an album as solid and enjoyable as Rather Ripped, and if they keep this up, I look forward to many more albums to come.

Rated:

 

swore up and down that I'd be disappointed if Rather Ripped offered more Sonic Youth lite...which it pretty much does, but I'm actually not disappointed at all. This is the best SY album since the underrated A Thousand Leaves, and it's also the most immediately accessible record they've ever made. It isn't perfect, but I'll deal with filler like "Sleepin' Around" and "Lights Out" if it means I get "Do You Believe in Rapture?", "Jams Run Free", and "Pink Steam", which are some of the greatest SY tunes ever. Sonic Youth's trailblazing days are long gone, but they're in a really great position right now: they're already legends, they have nothing to prove, and everyone will be happy as long as they keep putting out very good Sonic Youth albums, which they seem to be able to do pretty effortlessly these days. They've aged more gracefully than any other band I can think of at the moment. You can make a pretty good analysis of just about any Sonic Youth album by breaking it down according to who sings on which track, and looking at each one's shit-vs-hit quotient, so here's the breakdown for Rather Ripped:

- Thurston: the 2 worst on the album (as mentioned above), but also 2 of the best (also mentioned above), and a couple of pretty good tunes in "Incinerate" and "Or".

- Kim: for maybe the first time ever, there are no bad Kim songs.

- Lee: only gets 1 tune (what the hell?), "Rats"...but it's the weirdest track on the album, and it goes without saying that a Lee song is going to rule...Lee Ranaldo is a god, by far the coolest person in Sonic Youth...can't wait for the solo singer-songwriter album.

- Steve Shelley: he came in and played drums again.

Great album.

Rated:

 

Well, I loved the mostly mellow Sonic Nurse and this one's even quieter, so if you didn't dig it just go ahead and keep shaking your head and move on to some other review that pans this, because all I'm gonna say is why I think this is a really good record even if it falls short of a masterpiece. Clearly, this is Sonic Youth working new territory (for them) - never before have they been so straightforward, so conventionally melodic - but whether you're interested in hearing Sonic Youth work the territory that a hundred or a thousand other bands do is the real question you ought to be asking yourself before checking this out. Kim sings, for one. No artsy flat-toned sing-song, she really sings. I mean, it's not like you're gonna be asking yourself what dulcet-toned angel they hired to take over vocal duties, but there are clear melodies, never a given when Kim's at the microphone. Thurston's always been the band's stalwart rocker and he continues to deliver here. Lee puts forth with songs - and more importantly, melodies yet again - to match the other two as well. Lyrically I haven't quite absorbed it yet, but poetry readings and punk ranters are kept out, and favor is given to the personal observations and peace & love vibes that they've been doling out more and more frequently since A Thousand Leaves, maybe even Washing Machine. I've always thought of A Thousand Leaves as a demarcation point just like Goo and even Sister; it's one of those divisive albums that fans from "before" point to as when things started to go wrong for the band and fans from "after" point to as the album that got them into the band (usually to note the next demarcation point as the "things went wrong" album). The fact that they've grown, evolved, changed, morphed, mutated, whatever-you-wanna-call-it enough for them to have three such points tells me they're just another great rock band working as adults in their chosen career with a disregard to what's expected of them. That's punk enough for me and I hope they continue as long as they can, but maybe the fact the they're just another great rock band working as adults in their chosen career is enough to turn you off. Give a listen and see what you think and let me know.

Rated:

 

from rateyourmusic.com

[Fox]

My review (in french)

Après l'écoute de Rather Ripped, une seule chose est sure - ou presque -: ce n'est pas avec cet album que ceux qui ont laché Sonic Youth depuis la période allant de Goo à Experimental Jet Set Trash And No Star reviendront. Pour les autres, et en particulier ceux qui avaient apprécié Sonic Nurse, le nouvel album du groupe new yorkais a de grandes chances d'être un très bon disque. Je fais personnellement partie de cette catégorie, et c'est donc sans surprise que j'adore Rather Ripped.

Cet album est incontestablement l'un des plus pop du groupe, comme le prouvent d'entrée Reena et Incinerate. La durée des morceaux a considérablement rétréci: Sonic Youth nous avait habitué à des titres durant plus de 6/7 minutes, alors qu'ici la moitié des titres dure moins de 4 minutes et seulement deux durent plus de 6. On y retrouve également des éléments totalement inédits dans des albums de Sonic Youth, principalement regroupés dans les morceaux Do You Believe In Rapture? et Or - et encore plus particulièrement sur ce dernier. Do You Believe In Rapture, avec son tempo lent et son riff hypnotique basé sur des harmoniques arpégées, soutenu par une batterie qui utilise principalement ses cymbales; une autre guitare complètement atonale apparait clairement à partir du second couplet. Or est quand à lui une belle surprise. L'accompagnement instrumental de ce morceau n'est quasiment composé que de la batterie tribale de Steve Shelley, avec parfois quelques fragiles notes de guitare, comme si elles étaient à la recherche d'une structure. Ce morceau se rapproche, par son style "jam session", de She Is Not Alone, du premier album éponyme. Les autres morceaux se déploient dans un style pop/rock énergique, hypnotique ou tranquille selon les moments.

Pour autant, nous sommes bien sur ici en présence d'un album de Sonic Youth, et les éléments qui ont fait la réputation sont bien présents. Ceux qui clament que dissonances, larsens et saturations ont disparu n'ont certainement pas acheté le bon album... Il n'y a qu'à écouter l'intro larsenisée et l'explosion noisy après le premier couplet de Sleepin Around pour s'en convaincre. On retrouve même une sonorité proche de la perceuse que Lee Ranaldo utilisait dans The Burning Spear dans le fond sonore de What a Waste et à d'autres endroits du disque. Dans l'ensemble, dissonances et larsens sont donc toujours là, mais en un peu plus dilué dans l'ambiance que sur les autres albums. Evitez également de vous laisser abuser par l'écoute de Reena et Incinerate que l'on trouve comme une sorte de single pour le disque, bien qu'aucun single ne soit officiellement paru: si ces deux morceaux sont très bons, ils ne sont pas vraiment représentatifs de l'atmosphère nocturne et parfois mélancolique de l'album... Jetez plutôt une oreille (c'est une expression, lachez cette scie tout de suite...) au superbe Jams Run Free, meilleur morceau de l'album à mon gout, chanté magnifiquement par une Kim Gordon qui sonne d'ailleurs à merveille sur Rather Ripped, ou au morceau de Lee Ranaldo, Rats... L'album a, comme chaque album du groupe, un son et une ambiance unique par rapport aux autres albums de l'imposante discographie de la jeunesse sonique. On peut bien sur trouver quelques points communs avec d'autres disques: Sister et Sonic Nurse pour le format pop des compositions, Goo au niveau de la basse (Kim fait son grand retour sur son instrument de prédilection et ça n'est pas pour nous déplaire), mais cet album a de nombreux éléments qui le rendent très différent de ces derniers albums. Le morceau se rapprochant le plus d'autres albums est sans conteste Pink Steam, ce qui est sans doute l'une des raisons pour lesquelles ce morceau est considéré par beaucoup comme la perle de cet album, même si je ne suis pas totalement de cet avis: il s'agit du morceau le plus long du disque, presque 7 minutes, donc seulement 1 minute 30 à peu près chanté, le reste étant un instrumental composé de nombreuses structures différentes qui devrait ravir les accrocs de A Thousand Leaves. Une excellente surprise. Turquoise Boy se situe également dans le même style - il s'agit d'ailleurs du deuxième morceau de plus de 6 minutes... -, et si le groupe y réutilise discrètement le riff de Heather Angel (A Thousand Leaves) et qu'on peut aussi y retrouver une idée déjà présente dans l'enchainement The Wonder/Hyperstation de la Trilogy de Daydream Nation, le morceau apporte assez de nouveautés pour qu'on oublie ces petits détails - qui feront cependant le bonheur de certains de ceux dont je parlais plus haut et qui ont arrêté d'écouter Sonic Youth après le tournant des années 90 ["Sonic Youth n'a plus d'idées et ne fait que recycler ses idées encore et encore", "c'était mieux avant" - attention, je ne critique absolument pas leur position...]...

Bien sur, Rather Ripped est loin d'être le meilleur disque du groupe, mais on ne peut pas non plus leur demander un Bad Moon Rising ou un EVOL à chaque fois, hein... L'important est que Sonic Youth nous livre ici entre 12 et 15 très bons morceaux (la version américaine comporte les 12 morceaux de l'album, les versions hors-USA comportent également Helen Lundeberg en bonus, la version anglaise a Helen Lundeberg et Eyeliner et enfin, la version japonaise bénéficie de ces deux derniers plus un remix "floaty" de Do You Believe In Rapture) - même si je n'accroche pas encore totalement à The Neutral -, parvient se réinventer et à retrouver un nouveau son, une nouvelle ambiance, une nouvelle fois, et en cela atteint complètement son objectif. Vivement le prochain album :-)

Note: 18/20

[finding nobody]

qui qui

[alyasa]

Beautiful.

[Moshe]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/12/ar...=1&oref=slogin

"Rather Ripped" (Geffen)
Sonic Youth is 25, and its 20th album appears tomorrow. You may forget that math, or you may fixate on it. What was Sonic Youth's past, in larger terms, anyway? What did the band stand for, except unorthodox guitar tunings, overtones, conceptual art, popular culture (inasmuch as it could be related to conceptual art), inside jokes, fanzines and — somewhat skeptically — rock 'n' roll?
Perhaps not having the burden of a cause made it easier for Sonic Youth to persist. Certainly it is the rare example of a hard-touring group that often appeared to be having fun: throwing its weight behind new bands with no commercial future (as well as one that did: Nirvana), singing lyrics that have occasionally been pretentious or silly, playing long jams with dissonant gobs of noise, playing new-wavey eighth-note riffs.
Everyone has a different idea of what Sonic Youth's best record is because none are in any way perfect; they all contain various failures. But "Rather Ripped" has a different level of authoritative power. It is a fully legitimate, clear and strong rock 'n' roll record in the band's own style. And it may really be the best one, though one fears that saying it out loud means the band's work is done.
Sonic Youth had its own cloistered sound, defined by its tunings, in the beginning. I remember being fully spooked by all that indirect, ugly-beautiful tonality as a teenager, seeing the band at CBGB in 1983. (The band returns there to play a sold-out show tomorrow night before starting its summer tour.) But Sonic Youth is still here because its four members said yes to so many things: no music within their reach was too goofy or too refined.
As squalid as it liked to sound, overturning standard uses for amplifiers and effects boxes — and with an interest in Cage, Reich, Wolff, Cardew and post-classical music — there was always a classic-rock band inside Sonic Youth, ever since it first got a taste of writing a strong melody. (Those melodies appeared on "Evol," in 1986.)
That classic-rock band is what you hear in a lot of "Rather Ripped," still combining its billowing and liquefying guitar sounds, but condensing and concentrating them.
Here's how it works. On "Jams Run Free," Kim Gordon finishes her psychosexual, color-field lyrics 2 minutes 10 seconds into the song. ("I love the way you move/I hope it's not too late for me/It's too good on this sea/Where the light is green.") Immediately a rhythm-section vamp locks in, and the two guitars go at each other, one playing plinky harmonic tones and one discharging broad vales of fuzz. Thirty seconds later the guitars come together to play five notes in unison and two in harmony; then they pull apart as the drums gallop toward a blastoff, which happens at 3:20, opening into another riff, in a new, hazy, beautiful territory of sound. It's over at 3:50, and wow, it is satisfying.
Ms. Gordon is the glory of this record. For so long she has made her voice breathy and plain, at the edge of losing control, like a possessed Nico. Still, she has been only half there. Over the last 10 years she has become more central — playing more guitar, too, rather than bass — and on "Rather Ripped" she does something unusual: she sings forthrightly and in tune, making "Reena," "Turquoise Boy" and "Jams Run Free" the record's best tracks.
All Sonic Youth albums end with a question mark; this one literally does. Its last track, "Or," rumbles along quietly with an acoustic guitar and no climax. It has the purposeless atmosphere of a song that could drag on for 20 minutes, but it is brought home in 3½, ending with Thurston Moore's recitation of the kind of questions he probably hears a lot: "How long is the tour?/What time you guys playing?/Where you going next?/What comes first? The music? Or the words?" BEN RATLIFF

[Moshe]

http://www.mammothpress.com/index.ph...review&pid=788

Rather Ripped
Sonic Youth

Reviewed by: John-Michael Bond [Mon, June 12, 2006 @ 3:01:41 PM]

When you’ve made your mark on music by exploring the depths in which guitar bombast can melt both minds and ear drums, such as Sonic Youth has, the only way you can experiment is with softer tones. With that in mind, Rather Ripped contains some of the bands most poppy and accessible songs to date (seriously it sounds like Pavement at times) so for long time fans the change may be a little much at first. The songs are slow and for the most part very low key, even to the point of seeming lethargic. Rock records aren’t supposed to make you sleepy. It’s not boring, each song is beautiful, but everything sounds so laid back it relaxes you more and more as it goes along.

If you’re looking for traditional loud as hell guitar rock Sonic Youth you’ll be extremely disappointed. However as a fan of the band, this record did grow on me the more I listened to it. It’s not what I was expecting at all and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t initially disappointed. With a few weeks of listens under my belt I feel like I’ve finally digested it and have grown to except it for what it is. Rather Ripped is a fun guitar pop record, just don’t go in with pre-conceived notions of you’re going to hear.

7 out of 10
RIYL: Calla, Pavement or Sonic Youth

[Moshe]

http://www.startribune.com/457/story/488447.html


Sonic Youth, "Rather Ripped" (Geffen)
After several years with producer/guitarist Jim O'Rourke as a fifth member, Sonic Youth has scaled back to its original lean four-piece -- fittingly, as this is the band at its most intimate. The SY love album? Well, yes, starting off with Kim Gordon breathily cooing, "You keep me coming home again," in the opening song, "Reena," perhaps the bubbliest (and non-ironically so) pop song of the band's 25-year career as an alternative pacesetter.
Of course, this is love and pop through SY's revealing lens. The former is anything but straightforward, with Gordon and fellow singers/writers Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo exploring various, often contradictory, constituents and corollaries -- security, dependence, lust, affection, friendship, obsession, infidelity, paranoia. There's even faith in "Do You Believe in Rapture?" where the end times may or may not be a metaphor for earthly love.
And there are still plenty of the band's familiar musical leaps into the void with free-floating instrumental diversions and digressions. But most striking is the abundance of catchy melodies, smartly and effectively handled - not by the limited (if expressive) singers, but by the guitars, with many songs marked by simple yet hummable leads. It almost makes you wonder what would have happened if Television and Peter Frampton had worked together. That's a compliment.
By the final song, "Or," a somber sketch of a fan or friend, the band seems drained and exhilarated. Sounds like love.
STEVE HOCHMAN, LOS ANGELES TIMES

[Moshe]

http://www.newsday.com/entertainment...sic-columnists

SUPER SONIC. The latest example of Sonic Youth's ability to do whatever it wants exceedingly well is "Rather Ripped" (Geffen). Instead of the experimental squawks or spiky noise of recent releases, Youth's latest is gorgeous and pop-leaning, as Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore take turns weaving their hypnotic vocals and languid guitar riffs into dreamy rock songs, including the sweet, simple "Do You Believe in Rapture" and the epic "Turquoise Boy," which runs from quiet to loud and back again.

("Rather Ripped," in stores today; grade: B+.)

[Moshe]

http://www.411mania.com/music/album_reviews/41446

I’m going to say the title means ‘mostly drunk’ because that might help you when listening to this.

Release date: June 13th 2006
Label: DGC Records
Recorded: Sear Studio in New York-late 2005 to early 2006
Engineer: TJ Doherty
Mix Engineer: John Agnello

Total Disc Running Time: 51 minutes and 53 seconds

Personnel:

Thurston Moore-guitars and vocals
Lee Ranaldo-guitars, vocals and organ
Kim Gordon-bass, guitar and vocals
Steve Shelley-drums

Sonic Youth has been around since the early eighties. They took a lot of cues from punk and the underground rock scene. This led them to be tossed in with new wave, but they always had more of a darker edge. Then in the early nineties they were poised somewhere between grunge and alternative rock, but really got weird with the experimentation. If anything, Sonic Youth carries on the tradition of musical experimentation and raw grit of The Velvet Underground and other hardcore pre-punk acts.

Their last album was a welcome return to a more accessible mainstream sound, but it was rich in pop culture irony and esoteric postmodernism. This release seems to be less winking and could even be viewed as a toss off as it's the last album needed to fulfill their contract with Geffen Records. Two elements to note is that Jim O'Rourke has left the band and equipment that was stolen from the group in 1999 was returned to them in late 2005 and were used in this recording.

Track Listing

1) Reena

Good opener that is the core of Sonic Youth. It seems simple and disjointed in lyrics and musical arrangement, but it's really multi-layered. The layering of the guitars speaks of how far they've come from their punk roots while the driving beat shows that they are still loyal to it. The track has overall great musicianship with Shelley letting loose on the drums during the bridge.

2) Incinerate

Peppy musicianship hides the dark tale of a man who waits for the firemen to come while he burns his girlfriend. Whether this is literal doesn't really matter. The same layered sound and driving beat as the first is present here, this track might be a hair slower. Surprisingly catchy.

3) Do You Believe in Rapture?

A very interesting track. The sing-song organ and use of white noise is inventive and perfectly matches Moore's hollow vocals in a skewered examination of Christianity. It's definitely not a candidate for single status.

4) Sleepin' Around

It's classic Sonic Youth anti-social commentary to follow a song exploring religion with one touting the glory of promiscuous sex. A little too much reverb is evident on the bridge, but it then drops into some nice driving guitar work.

5) What a Waste

We smartly change things up with Gordon taking lead vocals. Dissidence and white noise is again played with in the background. This song is a weird mish-mash of death metal and Avril Lavigne styled teenie bopper angst. Hell, Gordon's vocal performance and the truer punk sound of this track is what Lavigne wishes she were.

6) Jams Run Free

A disjointed mess, but that's the point. This song demonstrates what happens when you don't tightly reel in the sound they've demonstrated on the other tracks. Sounds and chords mash into each other and not in the best of ways. The lyrics are just placeholders. As the title points out this is just a jam for the group that was probably too free to be included on a professional studio release.

7) Rats

An intriguing, gritty jazz vibe leaks into this track. This is evident in the bass and keyboard work. It's a welcome change up from the previous tracks, but all the songs on the disc are still structured the same way. One of the more coherent lyrically the story is of a woman who ‘rats' out on her boyfriend. Or so I'm guessing.

8) Turqoise Boy

Nice opener as the chords have a circular movement to them and not the straight ahead drive of the other tracks. The vocals and musicianship is also more low key. Three quarters into the disc this track serves as a nice palate cleanser. Just when you think it's a little too wimpy the guitar line beefs up to send the song home. I would probably term this as my favorite track.

9) Lights Out

A sparse, tinny sound and vocals a millions miles away and filled with angst give this an early grunge sound. Dare I use the word ‘filler' for a Sonic Youth album, but this song just laid there for me.

10) The Neutral

A great track with clever lines. It's about how one being banal and ‘neutral' is the "perfect sin." The character being sung about is not a dreamer, entertainer, cowboy, poet, nothing. He's neutral and within that vexing and hard to define, yet sad and worthless at the same time.

11) Pink Steam

The last track bleeds into this one as we get a five minute solid jam that segues from the last song to this one before the vocals kick in. This gives the piece a certain energy. Once again good drum and guitar work are the highlight.

12) Or

A great closing track. It's slow and introspective. It chastises the current music scene with its focus on money and sexuality when most of the artists don't have a clue as to what is going on. Perhaps you can take this as giving Geffen records the finger as they exit.

 

 

The 411: Sonic Youth has really grown as a band from their punk and new wave heyday as this disc demonstrates. While now you could put them under alternative rock, the layered sound that still somehow captures a raw vibe is hard to define. The mixing is not great as the vocals are drowned out on most tracks and the guitars are a little too ever present. The structures of all the songs are similar as are the arrangements that alternate between ‘fast’ and ‘slow.’ In some respects there is the tale-tale signs that they were just doing this album to finish up their contract with Geffen Records, but they certainly don’t phone it in.

Final Score: 7.0