Review Summary: A great record on its own, let alone as the 11th installment in Dinosaur Jr.'s discography.
These days Dinosaur Jr. remind me more and more of another cult band, Ramones. Think about it: both bands can boast an impressive lifespan, both were a key influence for many others in their genre and, the last but not least, both of them have invented a formula so versatile they kept to it for most of their careers. Though to be honest, J and the gang can boast a somewhat bigger collection of building blocks that they combine in various ways whenever comes the time to write a song - after all, their influences are all over the map. Classic rock, punk rock, folk, metal - everything gets wrapped up in the melancholic, yet at the same time rejuvenating little package.
This approach also makes it really hard for a band to make a change when the time comes. Once you've treaded all the grounds, they stay with you. It's gonna be too boring to resort to plain folk or straight rock'n'roll. And even if you manage that decision, old habits will still haunt you whether you like it or not.
The point I'm making is that Dinosaur Jr.'s eleventh album sounds exactly like Dinosaur Jr., with slight alterations here and there. This time around the band clearly decided to get in touch with their punk roots, which, seeing how mellow the post-reunion albums were getting, is a welcome decision. After hearing the two mood-setting singles "Goin Down" and "Tiny", their every overdriven chord beckoning to get out and run in the sun, I can finally get "Almost Ready" out of my head in favour of a new energetic earworm. "Good To Know", another rocker, references the golden standard You're Living All Over Me with a familiar wah pedal wheeze in the chorus. In a more peculiar case, "Knocked Around" starts off as an innocuous jangly mope tune before sharply shifting straight to the 5th gear halfway through, driven by cascading drums.
That particular song is in a way characteristical of the whole album, because while the high-energy stuff really gets you up and kicking, slower songs double up on the immersion factor. The obvious odd man out is "I Walk For Miles", one of the heaviest tracks I've heard from Dinosaur Jr. The way it fuzzily stomps along, one would think it's a tribute to Black Sabbath. Meanwhile, "Be A Part", one of my favourite cuts from this record, just flows through and around the listener like a cool river in the middle of a forest, the heightened pace only working in its favour. And speaking of the calmer songs, there are of course the two obligatory Lou Barlow tracks. "Love Is..." is fairly standard Sebadoh-tinged folk fare that has the guitar pushed a bit into the background, at least until another solo comes rolling. But "Left/Right", the album's closer, caught me completely by surprise. Maybe I just got used to the fact that Mr. Barlow is such a humble fellow whenever he's with Dinosaur Jr., but I did not expect him to write a song bearing a strange resemblance to early Radiohead. The spacey, soaring chorus carried by the most tearjerking wail from J Mascis' guitar sounds really cathartic for some reason, and I'd say that I'm going to go back to this song the most just for how beautiful of an oddity it is.
At the end of the day, Dinosaur Jr. still have all it takes to make some quality alternative rock of their trademark flavour. Sprinkled with a couple of interesting ideas, it's essentially the good ol' guys doing what they always did. Yes, they're pretty slow to change and they might need to do something about it in the near future, but for now we've got a solid record from a unique band that just won't stop going.
