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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed albums.

Sonic Nurse
by Sonic Youth


8.9

based on 32 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 29 votes
Read user comments
Rate this album

Official Artist Site

The veteran New York band, again operating as a five-piece (with Jim O'Rourke still in the group), return with a successor to one of their best albums in recent memory, 2002's 'Murray Street.'

LABEL:	Geffen
RELEASE DATE:	08 June 2004
DISCS:	1 disc
GENRE(S):	Alternative, Rock

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Drowned In Sound

‘Nurse’ is the closest to creating a landmark on parallel with ‘Daydream Nation’ they’ve come since that particular record's nameday in ‘88, and in it’s dense textures it maybe signals the extinction of the antediluvian No Wave idyll; a Robert Zimmerman trip that somehow got mixed up with Joni Mitchell, Black Flag and a conceptualist oddball.

100

No Ripcord

Sonic Nurse could be the best guitar rock album since, well, Murray St.

Village Voice (Consumer Guide)

This unusually songful set is well up among their late good ones, its dissonances a lingua franca deployed less atmospherically than has been their recent practice.

Entertainment Weekly

No big revelations, but plenty of rewards. [11 Jun 2004, p.123]

Filter

A gorgeous, bona fide gem. [#11, p.92]

Austin Chronicle

Every song but one falls fully developed in the five- to seven-minute ballpark, brimming with enough dissonant wizardry, smart vocal imagery, and tonal shades of rock to fly the freak flag like no aging rockers ever have.

Pitchfork

While Sonic Nurse isn't quite as strong as its predecessor, it's equally as imbued with instrumental dexterity and impressively coherent ideas.

All Music Guide

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.

Village Voice

Percolates the same melancholy satisfaction and nervous maturity, entropy and growth, in and out--but with an urgency and impulsiveness that risks upsetting the balance.

Stylus Magazine

Sonic Nurse, if not proof of a band bursting with fresh ideas, is at least fresh-sounding.

Under The Radar

If 1992's Dirty caught the grunge zeitgeist, Nurse might capture something of indie rock's recent taste for emotional epics. [#7]

The Onion (A.V. Club)

On the whole, Sonic Nurse compiles a laid-back hour of elaborate plucking and rhythm from five veteran musicians who reserve musical violence and poetic anger for when it feels most appropriate.

Junkmedia

The krang of album’s past seems more an afterthought as the band explores the natural textures of layered guitar and lumbering bass tracks.

Blender

Their most songful release since the major-label hellos Goo and Dirty, and by most standards their best since 1988's pivotal Daydream Nation. [#27, p.144]

PopMatters

Sonic Nurse finds them embracing and sifting through the finer moments of their past over the course of 10 outstanding tracks.

Dot Music

What emerges is Sonic Youth at complete ease with themselves and their music, operating simultaneously at the peak of their powers and with a powerful, audacious restraint.

Dusted Magazine

Sonic Nurse is the happy medium they've been craving. The songs, despite being mostly over five minutes long, are all to the point without feeling meandering.... The balance between noise and melody is right, with each emerging and vanishing at just the right point.

Uncut

The Youth sound rejuvenated. [Jul 2004, p.108]

E! Online

This ain't another Daydream Nation, but Nurse is a good cure for what ails the airwaves.

Q Magazine

Finds them revelling in bursts of noise and awkwardness, but more surprisingly perhaps, taking as much comfort in sweet melody. [Jul 2004, p.124]

ShakingThrough.net

It's [Kim] Gordon's tracks that make the strongest impact.

Rolling Stone

The guitar feedback... hasn't vanished, yet this is Sonic Youth's most accessible album since 1992's Dirty. [24 Jun 2004, p.175]

New Musical Express

Sounds like a brilliant album by a lesser band. [5 Jun 2004, p.57]

Delusions of Adequacy

Whilst Moore’s meandering stops Sonic Nurse from going that much needed extra mile, Kim Gordon and Lee Ranaldo are on reassuringly good form.

Spin

A strangely enervated Sonic Youth record, one that exchanges Murray Street's golden-years vigor for a sad sense of duty. [Jul 2004, p.108]

Mojo

Sonic Nurse is not... a classic rock record. And it's not a classic Sonic Youth record. It's an excursion, into corners weird and corners familiar. [Jun 2004, p.100]

The Wire

The emphasis this time around is on poppier melodies, but for all its attention to song form, Sonic Nurse feels more like a collection of exercises than a cohesive album. [#244, p.63]

The Guardian

Lacks the standout tracks of its predecessors.

Alternative Press

Sonic Nurse is better than 90 percent of new rock, but with younger combos like Lightning Bolt and Liars stealing their thunder, these well-meaning vets come off as old and in the way. [Jul 2004, p.134]

Tiny Mix Tapes

Sonic Nurse neither disappoints nor surpasses expectations.

Magnet

A better-than-average Sonic Youth album. [#64, p.106]

Splendid

A fairly average jaunt into familiar indie rock territory.

The average user rating for this album is 8.9 (out of 10) based on 29 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

djm gave it a9:
The only thing preventing a 10 is that not all of the tracks are up to the high standard of standouts such as Pattern Recognition and Unmade Bed, namely Kim's songs about Mariah Carey and Dude Ranch Nurse. They're only good if you are in the mood for them. This cd, to me, is among SY's very best.

Seamus S gave it a10:
A surprisingly beautiful record. There's something in here that you'll find in the best of Sonic Youth's album. That something is their ability to make something sound beautiful and remain dangerous, never straining their sound or sounding like they're trying to hard. This ranks amongst their best.

craig f gave it a10:
there last few records have consentrated more on instremental parts then song structure(a chorus). this record captures those ideas but with strong choruses added to the mix. this might be the best hard rock record of the last ten years and definatlly their best album since daydream nation. check out stones and paper cup.

alexander l gave it a10:
I never post stuff online, but i love this cd so much that i must emit my infatuation into the electro-abyss. This was my first sy album other than their contributions to the suburbia soundtrack, but now i have a bunch of them and this ranks with my other favorite, the creepily monochromatic "nyc ghosts and flowers". if you can find the japanese version of sonic nurse, risk life and limb to get it. the two extra instrumental tracks are as good as any of the rest, but with less conventional structures.

Nick S gave it a10:
This was my favorite album of 2004. If you listen to Pattern Recognition and Unmade Bed, you'll find out why. The album as a whole rocks - and for these reasons - outstanding rhythm, guitar work, and lyrics. Kim Gordon rules!!

Kimmy H gave it a9:
This is such a listenable album. some favorite songs were "paper cup exit" and "stones", this is good driving music. and just good for a lot of things.

Jeff W gave it an 8:
In hindsight, I think this is better than Murray Street, at least I listen to it more. It sounds to me like a collision of Crazy Horse with (insert name of any 80's feedback act here).

Sonic Nurse by Sonic Youth

Sonic Nurse
by Sonic Youth