Sonic Youth - The Eternal [Album]
 

Recently I decided to once again watch what was probably the biggest cult movie of the past two years in Juno, which gained it’s following due to the script but also down to its use of alternative rock getting a revival, Sonic Youth being one of the bands featured.

Sonic Youth can be seen as one of the trendsetters of the alternative USA movement in the mid nineties with their three biggest breakthrough albums in ‘Goo’ (the album that contained the track that hooked me onto Sonic in Kool thing), ‘Daydream Nation’ and ‘Dirty’.

However for a long period of time it seemed that Thurston and Kim had lost their mojo with the records following being less of a success (one friend of mine described them as a great band that sadly became a washed-up cult band too quickly).

With this album there’s been a big change with a new label in Matador records, a label best known for releasing the more avant-garde style of music such as the ‘Year Of…’ series by Fucked Up.

This change has been for the better as the feedback laden songs become less prominent and there is more of a pop sense with songs such as ‘Antenna’, ‘No Way to name two being the closest to ‘radio friendly’ that you’ll get out of a Matador release.

There’s also the underlying sexual message through the vocals (more on Kim’s in ‘Sacred Trickster’ and the slow building closer of ‘Massage The History’ (You’d think Anti-Orgasm would be another but that’s more political!)

There are the template bursts of feedback of course but it wouldn’t be a Sonic Youth record without it so the haters will feel a bit indifferent, to be honest more fool them in this case.

All in all Sonic Youth [with this record] have been able to shake off the cult status once again and gain a new era of fans with this release in the mixture of 90’s era and ambiance.