Sonic Youth [2009] The Eternal

[01] Sacred Trickster
[02] Anti-Orgasm
[03] Leaky Lifeboat (For Gregory Corso)
[04] Antenna
[05] What We Know
[06] Calming The Snake
[07] Poison Arrow
[08] Malibu Gas Station
[09] Thunderclap For Bobby Pyn
[10] No Way
[11] Walkin' Blue
[12] Massage The History



amg: If anyone thought Sonic Youth were getting a little too comfortable, The Eternal proved they weren't afraid of change, even as they closed in on 30 years of making music together. The Eternal is Sonic Youth's first album for legendary indie label Matador Records after a nearly 20-year stint with Geffen Records, which dovetails nicely with the fact that this is also the band's first album with former Pavement bassist (and Matador alum) Mark Ibold. Sonic Youth even changed their usual songwriting approach, writing and recording tracks in quick batches instead of planning an entire song cycle at once. Dust wasn't allowed to settle on these songs, nor could it — the most striking thing about The Eternal is how hard it rocks. The contemplative haze that drifted over Murray Street, Sonic Nurse, and to a lesser extent Rather Ripped is blasted away by opening track "Sacred Trickster"'s lunging, massive guitars and Kim Gordon's demand to be pressed up against an amp. The rest of the band sounds revitalized, too: Lee Ranaldo's excellent "What We Know" is a furious yet complex rocker, and Thurston Moore sounds like the leader of the gang on "Thunderclap for Bobby Pyn," which name-drops the Heaven's Gate cult and the alias of Germs singer Darby Crash between its "whoa-oh" and "yeah yeah"-fueled choruses. This is the heaviest Sonic Youth have been since Sister, and it's fitting that their return to the indie world touches on their SST days. That's not the only era they revisit, however. "Poison Arrow"'s skronky grind evokes Dirty's sexier moments; "Antenna"'s radio love turns Murray Street's sun-streaked drones into epic pop; and "Calming the Snake"'s tumbling, atonal riffing suggests summery menace as much as it does Sonic Youth's no wave roots.

While there's a little bit of almost everything that has made Sonic Youth great over the years, the band hasn't put these elements together in precisely this way before. Considering how expansive their last few albums for Geffen were, The Eternal's relatively concise songs also set it apart, but when Sonic Youth do stretch out, it's with purpose. "Anti-Orgasm" begins as a duet/duel between Gordon and Moore, who trade challenges and come-ons over free-falling guitars that become a rolling, slow-motion excursion; the track's instrumental interplay is more violent, and more sensual, than its words. "Massage the History" is even more vast, encompassing fragile acoustic strumming, distortion storms, and dead calm over its nearly ten-minute expanse. While The Eternal doesn't flow quite as effortlessly as some Sonic Youth albums, it's perfectly balanced, its raw moments tempered by the subtle "Walkin Blue" and "Malibu Gas Station," which creeps so imperceptibly toward its raging guitars that they're almost unnoticed until you're caught in their undercurrent. Sonic Youth's freedom to follow their bliss is what holds The Eternal together; just as paradoxically, the changes they make on this album not only bring excitement to their music, they reaffirm just how consistently good the band has been — and continues to be — over the years.
(amg 8/10)

Script [2008] Script

[01] We Cry
[02] Before The Worst
[03] Talk You Down
[04] Man Who Can’t Be Moved
[05] Breakeven
[06] Rusty Halo
[07] The End Where I Begin
[08] Fall For Anything
[09] If You See Kay
[10] I’m Yours
[11] Anybody There



amg: When the roof fell in on the boy band scene, crushing young Westlife knock-offs Mytown in the process, Dubliners Danny O'Donoghue and Mark Sheehan high-tailed it to L.A. to engineer for the likes of Teddy Riley, the Neptunes, and Rodney Jerkins. Formed with the addition of drummer Glen Power, three-piece band the Script may have become an overnight success in the U.K. and Ireland with their debut single "We Cry," but their self-titled album bears the imprint of their internship in California, a meticulously and well-scripted (excuse the pun) blend of smooth soul and radio rock in the mould of Maroon 5 and OneRepublic. (Indeed, they share much in common with the latter band, having both worked with Timbaland in the past.) The singles "We Cry" and "The Man Who Can't Be Moved" are obvious highlights, the former a catalog of hard luck stories — single mothers, drug-addled rock stars, the usual suspects — set to the tune of moody jazz guitar chords and lavish strings. "The Man Who Can't Be Moved" calls to mind the soul-infused modern rock of John Legend, while "Talk You Down" sees O'Donoghue talk a friend down from the brink of suicide in the style of Daniel Bedingfield. The highlights come fast and early — though "Before the Worst" borrows a little too much from Coldplay's "Speed of Sound" for comfort — and by the time the sterile boy band imitations "I'm Yours" and "If You See Kay" (essentially a rewrite of "We Cry") roll around, the Script has exhausted its songwriting well twice over.
(amg 5/10)

Sonic Youth [2004] Sonic Nurse

[01] Pattern Recognition
[02] Unmade Bed
[03] Dripping Dream
[04] Kim Gordon And The Arthur Doyle Hand Cream
[05] Stones
[06] Dude Ranch Nurse
[07] New Hampshire
[08] Paper Cup Exit
[09] I Love You Golden Blue
[10] Peace Attack



amg: Picking up where Murray Street's languid experimentalism left off, Sonic Youth's somewhat awkwardly named Sonic Nurse shows that the band still sounds revitalized, and may have even tapped into a more fruitful creative streak than they did on their previous album. Anyone who has stuck with Sonic Youth this long knows more or less what to expect from them, but the group still has the potential to surprise; one of Sonic Nurse's biggest surprises is the return of Kim Gordon. She had a relatively limited presence on NYC Ghosts & Flowers and Murray Street, but she's back in a big way on this album, contributing four tracks; not coincidentally, Gordon's songs are among the strongest on the album. "Pattern Recognition" gets Sonic Nurse off to a strong start and ranks among her best rock songs, falling somewhere between "Kool Thing" and "Bull in the Heather" in its icy-hot appeal. Her quieter songs have just as much impact: "Dude Ranch Nurse" boasts an oddly timeless guitar lick and lyrics ("Let me ride you till you fall/Let's pretend that there's nothing at all") that blur the line between alluring and nihilistic. "I Love You Golden Blue" is another standout, a beautiful but bleak ballad with ghostly vocals that recall Nico at her most fragile. Of course, the rest of the band finds moments to shine: Thurston Moore's "Dripping Dream" begins as absurdist, angular rock (although he still has the ability to make phrases like "We've been searching for the cream dream wax" sound like the coolest thing ever) and stretches out into a beautiful epic, with the interplay of feedback and guitar lines giving it a comet-tail majesty. "Paper Cup Exit," the requisite Lee Ranaldo track, has a sharper-edged mix of noise and melody than most of Sonic Nurse. Another of the album's surprises is how much of its inspiration seems to come from the band's late-'80s/early-'90s material. It's not just that the band slams George W. Bush on the mellow protest song "Peace Attack," just as Dirty's "Youth Against Fascism" railed against the first President Bush, or that they peer into the void of pop culture on "Kim Gordon and the Arthur Doyle Hand Cream" as they did on Goo's Karen Carpenter tribute, "Tunic." On songs like "New Hampshire" — which could pass for a lost track from Daydream Nation — Sonic Youth actually sound younger and more enthusiastic than they have in a few albums. All told, this album is probably the band's best balance of pop melodies and avant-leaning structures since Washing Machine; even if it doesn't rank among their most ambitious work, Sonic Nurse sounds like the kind of album Sonic Youth should be making at this point in their career.
(amg 8/10)

Sigur Ros [1999] Agaetis Byrjun

[01] Intro
[02] Svefn-g-Englar
[03] Staralfur
[04] Flugufrelsarinn
[05] Ny Batteri
[06] Hjartad Hamast (Bamm Bamm Bamm)
[07] Vidrar Vel Til Loftarasa
[08] Olsen Olsen
[09] Agaetis Byrjun
[10] Avalon


amg: Two years passed since Sigur Rós' debut. By this time, the band recruited in a new keyboardist by the name of Kjartan Sveinsson and it seems to have done nothing but take the band to an even higher state of self-awareness. Even on aesthetic matters, Sigur Rós entitle their sophomore effort not in a manner to play up the irony of high expectations (à la the Stone Roses' Second Coming), but in a modest realization. This second album — Ágætis Byrjun — translates roughly to Good Start. So as talented as Von might have been, this time out is probably even more worthy of dramatic debut expectations. Indeed, Ágætis Byrjun pulls no punches from the start. After an introduction just this side of one of the aforementioned Stone Roses' backward beauties, the album pumps in the morning mist with "Sven-G-Englar" — a song of such accomplished gorgeousness that one wonders why such a tiny country as Iceland can musically outperform entire continents in just a few short minutes. The rest of this full-length follows such similar quality. Extremely deep strings underpin falsetto wails from the mournfully epic ("Viðar Vel Tl Loftárasa") to the unreservedly cinematic ("Avalon"). One will constantly be waiting to hear what fascinating turns such complex musicianship will take at a moment's notice. At its best, the album seems to accomplish everything lagging post-shoegazers like Spiritualized or Chapterhouse once promised. However, at its worst, the album sometimes slides into an almost overkill of sonic structures. Take "Hjartað Hamast (Bamm Bamm Bamm)," for instance: there are so many layers of heavy strings, dense atmospherics, and fading vocals that it becomes an ineffectual mess of styles over style. As expected, though, the band's keen sense of Sturm und Drang is mostly contained within an elegant scope of melodies for the remainder of this follow-up. Rarely has a sophomore effort sounded this thick and surprising. Which means that "Good Start" might as well become of the most charming understatements to come out of a band in years.
(amg 9/10)

Sham 69 [1998] The Punk Singles Collection 1977-1980

[01] I Don't Wanna
[02] Ulster
[03] Red London
[04] What Have We Got
[05] Borstal Breakout
[06] Hey Little Rich Boy
[07] Angels With Dirty Faces
[08] The Cockney Kids Are Innocent
[09] If The Kids Are United
[10] Sunday Morning Nightmare
[11] Hurry Up Harry
[12] No Entry
[13] Questions And Answers
[14] I Gotta Survive
[15] With A Little Help From My Friends
[16] Hersham Boys
[17] You're A Better Man Than I
[18] Give A Dog A Bone
[19] Tell The Children
[20] Jack
[21] Unite And Win
[22] I'm A Man



amg: Since loudmouth Jimmy Pursey's group broke up after four years and four albums, here is the deluge list of retrospective Sham 69 product, including best-ofs, demos, and live outings, starting the year they split: The First, the Best & the Last (1980), Angels with Dirty Faces: The Best Of (1986), Live and Loud!! (1987), Live and Loud!!, Vol. 2 (1988), Sham's Last Stand (1989), Live at the Roxy (1990), Rare and Unreleased (1991), Kings & Queens (1997), and now The Punk Singles Collection (1998). Nine LPs! Overkill, anybody? Still, if you missed the above, let alone those four LPs reissued on CD by Dojo in 1996, you can't find a better place to peruse the godfathers of Oi! than this. It's a chronological collection of the 22 A- and B-sides from their ten U.K. singles (five straight of which were Top 20 hits there, proof of their massive following!). As usual, the original absolutely beats the movement it spawned, as the everybody-sing-along choruses of "Hurry Up Harry," "Questions and Answers," "Give a Dog a Bone," and "If the Kids Are United" belong in any non-snobbish punk fan's collection. In fact, since the two previous best-ofs are both long out of print vinyl, this CD is the jumping-on point for new kids on the Sham army block. Or, for those who wish to see what greatly inspired Minor Threat and the whole of the famous 1979-1983 D.C. Dischord scene, this is the place.
(amg 9/10)

Sinead O'Connor [1997] So Far...The Best Of

[01] Nothing Compares 2 U
[02] Mandinka
[03] The Emperor's New Clothes
[04] The Last Day Of Our Acquaintance
[05] Fire On Babylon
[06] Troy
[07] I Am Stretched On Your Grave
[08] Success Has Made A Failure Of Our Home
[09] John I Love You
[10] Empire - Bomb The Bass
[11] I Want Your (Hands On Me)
[12] Heroine (Theme From Captive)
[13] Don't Cry For Me Argentina
[14] You Made Me The Thief Of Your Heart
[15] Just Like U Said It Would B



amg: So Far...The Best of Sinéad O'Connor is a missed opportunity, failing to deliver a comprehensive overview of the first part of O'Connor's career, or an adequate hits collection. Part of the problem is the fact that O'Connor is an album artist that happens to deliver great singles as well, which means there will be essential tracks missing from a collection, even if it relies solely on the singles. So Far decides to circumvent this problem by combining album tracks with singles, but that doesn't work, since it gives the patchy Universal Mother preference over the excellent The Lion and the Cobra and omits such singles as "Three Babies." Things are further muddled by the inclusion of the non-LP rarities "Heroine," "You Made Me the Thief of Your Heart," and "Empire." All three songs are worthy, but they would make more sense on a rarities collection, which could also feature B-sides and non-LP singles like "Silent Night" and "My Special Child," which have never appeared on an album. Their inclusion was designed to convince hardcore fans into buying this album, but they make the collection less appealing to casual fans. In a way, that's not a bad thing, since So Far doesn't provide a good introduction to O'Connor, even if it does contain such essential songs as "Mandinka," "Troy," "Nothing Compares 2 U," "I Want Your (Hands on Me)," "I Am Stretched on Your Grave," and "The Emperor's New Clothes." However, those moments of brilliance sound awkward when put in a collection as poorly conceived as this. Only extremely casual fans, those that just want the hits on one disc, need this, since most listeners with a passing interest in O'Connor are much better served by the original albums.
(amg 6/10)

Sandie Shaw [1988] Hello Angel

[01] Nothing Less Than Brilliant
[02] Take Him
[03] Hello Angel
[04] A Girl Called Johnny
[05] Strange Bedfellows
[06] Please Help The Cause Against Loneliness
[07] Hand In Glove
[08] Cool About You
[09] Flesh And Blood
[10] Comrade In Arms
[11] I Will Remain



cduniverse: On this 1988 recording, the U.K.-based vocalist performed material composed especially for her by Morrissey ("Please Help The Cause Against Lonliness") and Jesus and Mary Chain ("Cool About You") and 15 more, including "Lover Of The Century," "Jeane," and "I Don't Owe You Anything."
(amg 7/10)

Sonic Youth [1987] Sister

[01] Schizophrenia
[02] Catholic Block
[03] Beauty Lies In The Eye
[04] Stereo Sanctity
[05] Pipeline - Kill Time
[06] Tuff Gnarl
[07] Pacific Coast Highway
[08] Hot Wire My Heart
[09] Cotton Crown
[10] White Cross
[11] Master-Dik



amg: EVOL was a major leap forward for Sonic Youth, but Sister is a masterpiece, demonstrating the group's rapidly evolving musicality. More than ever before, Sonic Youth's songs sound like actual songs, and their collages of noise, distortion, and alternate tunings are now used to provide texture and depth to the music, which is original, complex, and rewarding. Not only is there the full-throttle roar of "Tuff Gnarl," but there are shimmering layers of ambient harmonics and dissonance that are as haunting and challenging as any of their barrages of feedback. Furthermore, Sister has a warm sound, which lures the listeners into music that's defiantly arty but never indulgent. It's one of the singular art rock records of the '80s, surpassed only by Sonic Youth's next album, Daydream Nation.
(10/10)

Sinead O'Connor [1987] The Lion And The Cobra

[01] Jackie
[02] Mandinka
[03] Jerusalem
[04] Just Like U Said It Would B
[05] Never Get Old
[06] Troy
[07] I Want Your (Hands On Me)
[08] Drink Before The War
[09] Just Call Me Joe



amg: Sinéad O'Connor's debut, The Lion and the Cobra, was a sensation upon its 1987 release, and it remains a distinctive record, finding a major talent striving to achieve her own voice. Like many debuts, it's entirely possible to hear her influences, from Peter Gabriel to Prince and contemporary rap, but what's striking about the record is how she synthesizes these into her own sound — an eerie, expansive sound heavy on atmosphere and tortured passion. If the album occasionally sinks into its own atmospheric murk a little too often, she pulls everything back into focus with songs as bracing as the hard-rocking "Mandinka" or the sexy hip-hop of "I Want Your (Hands on Me)." Still, those ethereal soundscapes are every bit as enticing as the direct material, since "Troy," "Jackie," and "Jerusalem" are compelling because of their hushed, quiet intensity. It's not a perfect album, since it can succumb to uneven pacing, but it's a thoroughly impressive debut — and it's all the more impressive when you realize she only topped it with its immediate successor, before losing all focus.
(amg 9/10)

Skids [1979] Days In Europa

[01] Animation
[02] Charade
[03] Dulce Et Decorum Est (Pro Patria Mori)
[04] Pros & Cons
[05] Home Of The Saved
[06] Working For The Yankee Dollar
[07] The Olympian
[08] Thanatos
[09] A Day In Europa
[10] Peaceful Times
Bonus Tracks
[11] Masquerade
[12] Out Of Town
[13] Another Emotion
[14] Aftermath Dub
[15] Grey Parade
[16] Working For The Yankee Dollar (Single Version)
[17] Panguards Crusade



amg: This time the rhythm section is better (Mike Baillie and Russell Webb had stepped in), and Bill Nelson's production also helps matters. But just what is he like, that Richard Jobson? Song titles in Latin, for goodness sake, and references to an Olympian ideal that got him into trouble with those who saw him as a Nazi sympathizer — he claimed that was nonsense, he was just interested in history. And he wanted listeners to be interested too, which is why he rammed the grandiose "A Day in Europa" and "The Olympian" down their throats. However, there was considerable compensation in the inclusion of the singles "Animation," "Charade," and, in particular, "Working for the Yankee Dollar."
(amg 6/10)