Sonic Youth
"Murray Street"
(Interscope)

Following 2000's disappointing "NYC Ghosts and Flowers", Sonic Youth has
once again returned to their Echo Canyon Studios, this time with Jim
O'Rourke as a fully functional contributor of the avant-rock collective.
"Murray Street" is the result, a sprawling seven-track return to the more
"pop-oriented" sound that punctuated their greatest efforts in the late
80s/early 90s. Yet while there is a certain familiarity to this new attempt
at pop, you can always leave it to Sonic Youth to not completely rehash old
tricks, but to build upon them as well.

As I listen to "Murray Street", the supposed second of three albums dealing
with New York City's history and culture (as divulged through their
website), there is a certain folk element that has penetrated its way into
the drone-y Sonic Youth sound. This could very well be attributed to the
presence of O'Rourke, whose recordings "Bad Timing" and "Halfway to a
Threeway" have always shown heavy debts to John Fahey. Nowhere is this more
apparent than on "Rain On Tin", which starts by recalling the dramatic
splendor and urgency of EVOL's "Expressway to Yr Skull" before morphing into
a serpentine Fairport Convention-style jam between Ranaldo, Moore and
O'Rourke. The interplay between the three throughout the record is
fantastic.

On "The Empty Page", Thurston Moore seems to be re-working "Sunday" off of
"A Thousand Leaves", with hints of a Pavement-esque sound emerging as well.
It's a great pop song which will be a great addition to the staple pop songs
of the Sonic Youth canon.
Thurston continues into "Disconnection Notice", which crawls along at
tortoise-pace, showcasing once again the angular beauty of Sonic Youth's
three-sometimes-four guitar attack.

Lee Ranaldo contributes "Karen Revisited", and once again proves that mining
a familiar concept does not need to lead to predictability. As the song
ends, you can hear Jim O'Rourke's studio wizardry at work as the band jams
around some knob-twiddling. On "Radical Adults Lick Godhead Style" a more
warped attempt at classic rock by Sonic Youth, a garage rock riff forming a
backbone of the song. (A shot at the Strokes perhaps?)

Kim, who has arguably been the band's most inconsistent songwriter of late,
contributes two of her most stable efforts to date, abandoning the
incomprehensible grunts that plagued "A Thousand Leaves" for some actual
singing. While not the album's standout tracks, they are superior to her
most recent output.

"Murray Street" is the reason why I will start following Sonic Youth's
output again. Purchase this item and watch Jim O'Rourke work his magic
again.

-Karthik