Sonic Youth Successfully Starts Anew

Sonic Youth
Murray Street

Murray Street comes at an important point in the band's life. Its creation was interrupted when the group's hometown of New York was temporarily brought to its knees by Sept. 11. It's the first album to feature guitarist Jim O'Rourke as a full-fledged member, and it's the band's second LP since the July 1999 theft of numerous guitars and other gear.

The equipment had been tweaked too extensively to be simply replaced. Basically, the band was presented with the opportunity -- or burden, depending on one's perspective -- of beginning anew.

Following up 2000's NYC Ghosts and Flowers, which received mixed reviews, Sonic Youth really bolts out of the starting gate with this one. Murray Street's opening trio -- "The Empty Page," "Disconnection Notice" and "Rain on Tin" -- are fabulously progressive in both the figurative and literal senses of the word. Sung by guitarist Thurston Moore and bolstered by clear and beautiful guitar lines, the three songs march onward with a mixture of psychedelic dreaminess, jazzy spontaneity and good ol' alt-rock to move them along.

Unfortunately, the remaining numbers can't keep up. "Karen Revisited" starts out intentionally off-kilter and weird. Yet the song still makes perfect sense. After all, the lyrics came from the mind of Lee Ranaldo, the group's resident mad scientist and guitar wizard, who has always seemed content to plant dissonance and squall alongside traditional song structure and melody.

Once the piece culminates in an unsettling portion of high-pitched metallic squealing and a lengthy period of serene near-nothingness, the magic of Murray Street's first half is lost.

The rest of the album is prime Sonic Youth, but none of it quite reaches the heights scaled by the first three tunes. "Radical Adults Lick Godhead Style" comes close, but no cigar. Kim Gordon does her somewhat typical riot-grrrlish bit on the intense "Plastic Sun," a diatribe that is salvaged by cagey guitar screeches and Steve Shelley's propulsive drumbeat. She goes on to sing the closer, "Sympathy for the Strawberry," which is a fitting conclusion but loses points for descending into a dronelike pattern.

If the band had kept the spirit of the first three songs alive for the long haul, Murray Street could very well have given 1988's Daydream Nation a run for its money as the group's unofficial masterpiece.

As it is, the new record is great. Average Sonic Youth would translate into a stunning display from another band. Unfortunately, it could have been even better.

The Arts & Entertainment Editor can be reached at artsdesk@unc.edu.