Murray Street
- Sonic Youth
- Band Name: Sonic Youth
- Record Label: Interscope
- Release Date: Jun 25, 2002
- Critic Score
- Most active
- Publication
- Most clicked
-
Sonic Youth find a balance--between formlessness and structure, melody and cacophony--that's eluded them for a while. [28 Jun 2002, p.142]
-
90Murray Street is Sonic Youth's first successful convergence of envelope-pushing guitarwork and accessible songery since 1988.
-
90There is just enough balance between the tune, and the unexpected jazz chords, ear-splitting squeals, and lovely harmonic noises to make it forever listenable.
-
90Sonic Youth have made a joyful return to their No Wave hardcore rock roots with a vibrating set of muscular songs which glide effortlessly from Gooey power pop to full on guitarmageddon meltdown, skulled out psychedelia and beyond. [#220, p.53]
-
80Written with some basic, inviting rock structures, the album replaces the hyper energy and angst of older material with slowed-down, complex textures and delicate grooves -- but still rocks out intermittently.
-
Whether they came on board at Daydream Nation or Experimental Jet Set, true believers will relish this one.
-
80Murray Street contains some of the best music Sonic Youth have recorded since the landmark Daydream Nation in 1988. [Jul 2002, p.122]
-
80They've got more sweet-and-bitter guitar muscle than ever. [#8, p.122]
-
For the first time in their careers, Sonic Youth are willing to stand for something and give it to you, no frills. No more hiding behind black shades and pretending you're Lou Reed, no more “let's try to make the scariest noises possible from our guitars” sessions, no more poses. Sonic Youth have grown up.
-
Murray Street's first four songs rank among the most consistent, and consistently exciting, work in Sonic Youth's career, so much so that the album's shorter, more rock-oriented songs feel a bit anticlimactic.
-
80An essay in coolly assured, sophisticated leftfield rock, occasionally laden with trademark discordance yet also full of scintillating tunes. [June 2002, p.123]
-
Murray Street achieves that rare thing for any band - real consistency.
-
80Features some of the group's most focused and seductive work ever.
-
80Consider Murray Street to be Sonic Youth's calmer, more introspective journey into the science of sound, one filled with just as many gifts as their earlier, more hard-hitting works. It's filled with rewarding listens.
-
80The band's conventional elements are even more conventional while the boundary-pushers stretch as far as ever. [Album of the Month, July 2002, p.92]
-
Murray Street is like falling asleep with the TV on and waking to rapturous white noise.
-
80This time around, the band square their artier tendencies with their sweet tooth for classic psych-rock. [Aug 2002, p.110]
-
80Whereas the band once seemed to dawdle and wander aimlessly through beds of noise, this new tight formation sees hooks, standard song structures and recognizable melodies.
-
Murray Street doesn't mark an epochal moment for Sonic Youth, but its familiar nods and new ingredients--from Steve Shelley's occasionally near-funky drumming to O'Rourke's tingly laptop textures--stake out another high point for a band achieving self-realization by reconciling self-absorption with a sigh and a smile.
-
Features less avant-garde noodling and more straight-up Youth. [Sep 2002, p.96]
-
70With Murray Street the band has made a persuasive case for its ongoing existence for the first time in over a decade.
-
Overall, SY fail to get into their groove between twisted, brutalised melody and spastic six-string experimentalism.
-
The new album isn't terrible, just dull.
prev
next
Page:
- 1
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 13 out of 13
-
Mixed: 0 out of 13
-
Negative: 0 out of 13
-
BrockG10Modern masterpiece.
-
JonathanH10Brilliant, another masterpiece by Sonic Youth
-
jimr9