Dinosaur Jr. - "Pick Me Up" (mp3)
In keeping with my tendency to favor the diminishing returns of longtime favorites over the constantly invading hordes of indie rock hypes of dubious quality, Beyond is, along with other slabs by oldsters Sloan and Ted Leo, one of my favorite albums of this year so far. Thing is, though, even though You're Living All Over Me is my favorite Dinosaur Jr. record, I don't have any particular reverence for the J/Lou/Murph lineup. In fact, I love a couple of the albums that J did by himself (the last official Dinosaur album, Hand It Over, and the first Fog album, More Light) just as much, sometimes even more simply because of J's great drumming (perhaps for the same reason that like Foo Fighters more than Nirvana; as a drummer and wannabe songwriter, I have a lot of respect for guys who can bring both skill sets together successfully). This album will get a lot more attention than it would've if J had recorded most of the same songs as The Fog, but I probably would've checked it out and enjoyed it either way. That's not to discount Lou's contributions, though; he sings 2 songs, and J even lets him get one on the first half of the album for once! I've never really spent any amount of time listening to any of Barlow's primary projects, although I like his voice enough that I'd probably receptive if I heard the right Sebadoh album or whatever. "Back To Your Heart" is a definite standout of this album, and works way better in the context of J's songs than, say, "Lose" does on YLAOM.
"Pick Me Up" is the longest song on the record, and anything past 6 minutes in the J Mascis catalog promises a looooong guitar solo at the end. But for once, he actually fills up that running time with a fair amount of structural twists and turns. The first couple minutes just kind of chug along, without as strong a hook as other songs on the first half of the record like "Crumble" and "This Is All I Came To Do." But then J lets loose a lead guitar line with a weird high-pitched effect that doesn't really sound like the usual pedals he employs on his records, although I think he used a similiar sound on some of the older Dinosaur songs when I saw them at the 9:30 Club a year and a half ago. Then, there's a tempo change, and some interesting stuff going on toward the end that can't actually be categorized as J soloing his brains out over a midtempo jam (but, of course, does include that). I mean, it actually comes to a pretty awesome climax at the very end instead of just fading out. There's plenty of other good stuff on the record -- "I Got Lost" is a nice return to "Flying Cloud"-type acoustic grandeur -- but it's really the only moment that felt like a suprise. Not that reunion albums (or anything by J Mascis, for that matter) are places to go looking for surprises.
In keeping with my tendency to favor the diminishing returns of longtime favorites over the constantly invading hordes of indie rock hypes of dubious quality, Beyond is, along with other slabs by oldsters Sloan and Ted Leo, one of my favorite albums of this year so far. Thing is, though, even though You're Living All Over Me is my favorite Dinosaur Jr. record, I don't have any particular reverence for the J/Lou/Murph lineup. In fact, I love a couple of the albums that J did by himself (the last official Dinosaur album, Hand It Over, and the first Fog album, More Light) just as much, sometimes even more simply because of J's great drumming (perhaps for the same reason that like Foo Fighters more than Nirvana; as a drummer and wannabe songwriter, I have a lot of respect for guys who can bring both skill sets together successfully). This album will get a lot more attention than it would've if J had recorded most of the same songs as The Fog, but I probably would've checked it out and enjoyed it either way. That's not to discount Lou's contributions, though; he sings 2 songs, and J even lets him get one on the first half of the album for once! I've never really spent any amount of time listening to any of Barlow's primary projects, although I like his voice enough that I'd probably receptive if I heard the right Sebadoh album or whatever. "Back To Your Heart" is a definite standout of this album, and works way better in the context of J's songs than, say, "Lose" does on YLAOM.
"Pick Me Up" is the longest song on the record, and anything past 6 minutes in the J Mascis catalog promises a looooong guitar solo at the end. But for once, he actually fills up that running time with a fair amount of structural twists and turns. The first couple minutes just kind of chug along, without as strong a hook as other songs on the first half of the record like "Crumble" and "This Is All I Came To Do." But then J lets loose a lead guitar line with a weird high-pitched effect that doesn't really sound like the usual pedals he employs on his records, although I think he used a similiar sound on some of the older Dinosaur songs when I saw them at the 9:30 Club a year and a half ago. Then, there's a tempo change, and some interesting stuff going on toward the end that can't actually be categorized as J soloing his brains out over a midtempo jam (but, of course, does include that). I mean, it actually comes to a pretty awesome climax at the very end instead of just fading out. There's plenty of other good stuff on the record -- "I Got Lost" is a nice return to "Flying Cloud"-type acoustic grandeur -- but it's really the only moment that felt like a suprise. Not that reunion albums (or anything by J Mascis, for that matter) are places to go looking for surprises.
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on Tuesday, February 27, 2007 at 8:54 AM.
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Jxsh : 2:51 PM