:: Track Listing

1. Pattern Recognition
2. Unmade Bed
3. Dripping Dream
4. Kim Gordon and the Arthur Doyle Hand Cream
5. Stones
6. Dude Ranch Nurse
7. New Hampshire
8. Paper Cup Exit
9. I Love You Golden Blue
10. Peace Attack

:: Record Review

Sonic Youth

Sonic Nurse
(Geffen; 2004)

Rating: 94%
Combined Rating: 81%


Young writers have always found the stones of their own creative roads pulled from the quarries of the greats before them. Phrases of fanciful but often foolish alliteration imitated from the brilliant stream-of-consciousness pages of Ulysses, or short, clean cuts from Personae, or loosely linked thoughts and constructions inspired by the amalgamations of influences that form The Wasteland. But authenticity belonged to those authors (Joyce, Pound, Eliot, Yeats, et. al), if not by virtue of sheer originality, then by virtue of their organization and cementing of those stones into their own distinctive style.

Needless to say, music operates by this same working principle, which is far different from mere imitation. Imitation, while the best form of flattery, doesn’t translate into the best albums; it results in, at best, good albums. The great albums and great bands of recent years, by contrast, have either borne the stamp of originality, or a unique assemblage of their influences. I’d cite, if pressed, Radiohead, Interpol, Broken Social Scene, Trail of Dead, Spoon, The Flaming Lips, and even Wilco as bands whose efforts evidence a talent and skill beyond simple rehashing of influences. Meanwhile, most of the young guard still struggle for their place in the spotlight by copping riffs and keyboards from the ‘80s, wondering why a simple disco beat and an occasionally clever bass line doesn’t win them instant fame.

Well, it’s because guys like Sonic Youth, fucking old guys for cripes’ sake, come around to rap the callow upstarts on the knuckles with the reminder of what makes great songs and great albums. While the misleadingly-named quintet (as of 2002’s massively excellent Murray Street) have taken 19 albums to arrive at what everyone’s just dying to call a return to the stunning form of Daydream Nation, nothing can take away from the fact that Sonic Nurse quite simply kicks the shit out of just about any album released in the past two years. Superior to Murray Street in both its tightness and improvisational guitar-work, it is -- without resort to elaborate metaphor or simile -- phenomenal.

With uncanny ease, evidencing their finally-achieved comfort with an assimilative sound that incorporates both their avant-gardism and melodic genius, the Youth turn out sonic powerhouse after sonic powerhouse. “Unmade Bed,” easily the best song of the year so far, moves from understated lyrics intimating an abusive relationship, to an extended guitar movement of unparalleled skill, the band’s three axes working with and through one another, layering squalls of feedback atop subtle harmonizing and fretwork. “Stones” progresses through successive crescendos that culminate in a rising guitar-attack at the end of a seven-minute-plus labyrinth of melody, hooks, and lyricism.

The weight here, as with Murray Street is mostly carried by Thurston Moore’s tracks, which unfailingly wind through gorgeous melodies and memorable hooks to create some of the best material the Youth have recorded. Kim Gordon, the unpredictable and, in the past, oft-disastrous loose cannon of the group, does victimize a perfect rating for the album with an abrasive vocal performance on “Kim Gordon and the Arthur Doyle Hand Cream,” the single discordant track of the album (some questionable sequencing also takes it down a bit). But putting aside her manic howling and whispering on “Dude Ranch Nurse,” she comes out smelling like roses. Gordon produces one of the album’s most precariously beautiful gems on the unexpectedly melodic and intricate “I Love You Golden Blue,” the guitar-work of which, as in every single track on the album, is at once restrained and subtly complex. Even “Dude Ranch Nurse” is home to some spectacular chord-shifts and alternately scathing and delicate guitar pieces.

The layering of complex guitar lines and simple two-and-three chord oscillations in the oft-unpredictable, and comfortably extended guitar sections of tracks like “Stones” and “Unmade Bed” is often the most rewarding element of the album. In addition, the Youth pull out of their miles-deep bag of inspiration some of the most golden hooks of any album in recent memory, even while their songs move fearlessly into improvisational set pieces. “Stones” builds from multiple ingenious hooks into jam-sessions that are absent any masturbation whatsoever. “Pattern Recognition” quietly and seamlessly transitions between its hooks and lyric passages. And the hooks of “Peace Attack,” while initially subdued, come out on repeated listens to be some of the most rewarding on the album.

What’s so striking about Sonic Nurse, however, is just how perfectly it balances between immediate accessibility and a complexity that increasingly rewards repeated listening. This balance exists so perfectly thanks to the way in which the Youth’s unwavering melodic genius is so skillfully wrought through complex song structures. I’ve listened to the album all the way through more times than to any album since Interpol’s debut LP, and its immensely moving strength has brought me many a reprimand at my summer job. It’s prompted furious air-guitar fireworks at my desk at times, and at others has left me simply sitting blank and dumb in front of my computer. The one thing it’s never been is background music, demanding attention even through its extended jams, kindling curiosity despite, and because of, its occasional discord.

That a band so old can arrive in the '00s so relevant, and produce what is easily one of the best albums of its career two decades after its greatest masterwork, is a hell of an accomplishment. Statistics would indicate that Sonic Youth would be dead by now. Instead, they’ve made every incoming act of 2004 sweat, setting an impossibly high bar with an album that is, flat-out, essential. I’ve never been one to root for the old guys, but right now they’re kicking the young guys’ asses, and in the best possible way. How strange and improbable, that after all this time, the only guys who can top Sonic Youth are themselves. Amir Nezar :: 1 June 2004 |