The title of Sonic Youth's newest album references a defunct Berkeley, Calif., record store, but it's also a fitting description for the band's tautest set in 25 years. As the militaristic stencils on the cover suggest, these 12 tracks add up to one super chiseled physique; critics needn't exaggerate Rather Ripped's concision, though, Sonic Youth manage to sneak in all sorts of noisy accents, oddball tunings, and crescendo transitions into their so-called pop record.
That, and it's a grower. After my initial runs through, I appreciated the pristine guitar sound, but the majority of the songs felt boring (over time hooks bloomed). Yet it also proves that New York's premier avant-garde group can write catchy tunes without dipping too deeply into its bag of cracked guitar tricks. Doused with sleek and slippery riffs, the album's early succession of propulsive, three-minute art-pop songs is especially strong.
The other most striking aspect of the album is that there are more Kim Gordon tracks than on most recent outings. She makes good use of the face time, turning in her best work since "Kissibility" and "Kool Thing". On "Reena" she reminds someone, presumably husband/bandmate Thurston Moore, that "you keep me coming home again," despite her, uh, intense friendship with another woman. Both it and her "Turquoise Boy" feature brief Glenn Branca-like breakdowns before returning to Lee Ranaldo and Moore's shiny guitar playing. On the slinky "Jams Run Free", Gordon breathily intones, "We love the jams." Rather Ripped has plenty of those.
Moore's first vocal turn comes on the catchy slip'n'slide single "Incinerate." Not an update of Big Black's "Kerosene", it may be a love song with over-cooked metaphors or perhaps some actual immolation: "I ripped your heart of your chest/ Replaced it with a grenade blast...you dosed my soul with gasoline/ You flicked a match into my brain."
The strongest track is "Do You Believe in Rapture". Set against a backwash of noise, 16-carat "Bull in the Heather" strums, and the coupling of a lightly thumping drum machine with Steve Shelley on the real deal, it feels like Daydream Nation's piano burning "Providence" turned inside out by Yo La Tengo. Out of nowhere (or maybe out of one guitar strand), it shifts into pop prettiness.
Somewhere just after the middle of the album, things loose a little oomph, especially on ho-hum tour-diary closer "Or". (Though some of its spare sound does echo "Do You Believe in Rapture".) On it, Moore begins by describing a girl with "canisters of whipped cream" in her "sweater pockets" and ends recounting various fan questions, culminating with the queries: "What comes first? The music or the words?" On this one, it was hopefully the music. There are a couple late-stage keepers: "The Neutral"'s crystalline guitar parts drop like snow (again, it's a Kim track) and the longer "Pink Steam", a slow-build Moore lust song, is gorgeously windswept and violently romantic.
The latter brings up something important: "Pink Steam"'s named after a great collection of diaristic essays, confessional memoirs, and literary tidbits by San Francisco author Dodie Bellamy. I didn't need to look that one up but as a kid, I used Sonic Youth lyrics and liner notes as reading lists-- they led me to Gerhard Richter, Mike Kelley, Richard Kern, Raymond Carver, d.a. levy, and more. They've always been important for bringing downtown NYC's overlapping traditions of art/music/literature to punk kids. Go back to those early records to check out who did the art work for them and read the thank you's. Pre-internet, this was the way to get an underground education.
Talking to Moore recently for Pitchfork, he said noise's popularity and accessibility seems as a good reason as any to create a relatively noise-free album. He's right: Sonic Youth needn't bother impressing folks at this point. That history can also work against them, but it's boring to parade out each classic and see just how Rather Ripped stacks up to it. So, hey, let's just say it's great to hear Kim, Lee, Steve, and Thurston making an album that sounds beautifully invigorated and goes down smoothly.
