Relief is such a great thing. One moment you could be worrying your little head off about something only to be
relieved of the stress. Yeah, relief, great thing. Of course, what has this got to do with our New York quartet (now a five piece for this album, Jim O’Rourke played a bit of bass and guitar) Sonic Youth? If you were a fan at the start of the millennium then you were probably pretty bummed out about the failed experiment NYC Ghosts and Flowers but fast forward two years and you’ll see how Murray Street brought the band up to speed.
Murray Street is a strange and interesting album. You’ve got the sort of long, drawn-out songs and then you have the short, intentionally shallow songs. Of course, the album starts of slowly with
The Empty Page. It’s beautiful melody can slowly ease you into the song perfectly. Thurston pours his heart out in his vocals (or maybe I’m exaggerating) and achieves a type of singing he would never be able to do in the old days. Every time I listen to the song, I fall in love with it over and over again and I find new things that I like about it each time. About two minutes in and you are hit with a pseudo-orchestral sound to top it off.
Disconnection Notice has a sort of jazz vibe going for it. Thurston keeps the same tone he had for the previous track. They keep in the same vein and they flow together.
A favorite of the shallow songs (hey, there is only about two of them anyway) is
Plastic Sun. A song about realizing everything is so fake, it sounds dissonant in places and the song would not be pulled off if it weren’t for Kim’s screeching,
evil vocals. The guitars sound atonal, the drumbeat could fit into any dance punk band and the bass keeps a nice steady rhythm. Maybe an ode to the early, early days perhaps? Speaking of odes,
Karen Revisited seems to be about Karen Carpenter. She is a recurring theme in some Sonic Youth songs as it seems Lee has a slight obsession with her. For those who don’t know, she is one half of the pop group The Carpenters who had troubles with anorexia and finally dying from the illness. She was first mentioned in Tunic (Song For Karen), the lines “I feel like I’m disappearing, getting smaller everyday but when I look into the mirror, I’m bigger in every way” gives it away. Despite this weird, disturbing subject, the song is beautiful and could maybe be a perfect pop song. There isn’t a bad track on the album but the fact there is seven tracks contribute to the fact.
The album has a clean, mature sound and it’s an obvious hint to classic rock (aw come on, listen to A Thousand Leaves and tell me that doesn’t have some sort of psychedelic edge). Works really well with their style I must say, Thurston and Lee’s crazy guitar lines and Kim’s thumping bass suits the style as well as Steve’s simple but effective drumming. All in all, this album is worth it, no it’s not an amazing album or even one of Sonic Youth’s best but it certainly is enjoyable to an extent. The slow songs will whisk you away while the shorts ones will send a bit of adrenaline to your body, a sweet combination! It is also noted that Kim and Thurston's cute little daughter Coco adores the cover of the album.
