If you were a Dinosaur Jr. fan the first time around, it still seems amazing, three albums into their fantastic post-2005 reunion run, that they're together at all. People mention that Lou Barlow was dismissed and that he and J Mascis had clashes, but it felt darker than that. I went to one of Sebadoh's early shows during the tour for 1991's III; Barlow was sour about being fired, and he punctuated songs with jokes about J Mascis. Pointed tunes like "The Freed Pig" were followed by pre-recorded taunts played on a portable tape deck, which usually targeted his former bandmate, or the situation in general. You imagined punches being thrown the next time they were in a room together. It's unclear where everyone is in the reconciliation process at this point-- Mascis isn't all that effusive outside his guitar solos-- but part of what's made Dinosaur Jr. a great band is the ongoing tension between the group's leaders. (For his part, the eternally mellow drummer Murph doesn't seem to be bugged by the bickering.) At this point, though, the drama isn't as interesting as the fact that the new albums-- 2007's Beyond, 2009's Farm, and now I Bet on Sky-- are all good to very good.
These days, bands getting back together to relive the glory days is nothing special. But it takes a certain kind of group to reunite and create vital music. In most cases, you have older bands solidly recreating their past (see: Mission of Burma); it's rarer to see artists with the ability to top what they did the first time around (see: Swans). Judging the dialog around the post-break Dinosaur Jr. records, J, Lou, and Murph are straddling the line between the two: On Beyond and Farm, outside small modernist details, they sounded very much like they did in the pre-Green Mind SST years. I Bet on Sky's title offers a hint that they've gone in a slightly different direction for album three (it's worth noting they've now matched their output of the first 80s run). The shift's easy to explain: I Bet on Sky feels like the material that emerged after Barlow was fired: 1991's underrated Green Mind, 1993's alt-rock crossover Where You Been, and the most commercially successful album, 1994's Without a Sound.
There's a softer, more spacious feel to those albums; if you go back to the 1985 self-titled debut, 1987's masterwork You're Living All Over Me, or 1988's also classic Bug, it's amazing just now noisy and claustrophobic those albums were. (It's there that they reminded you of their earlier days in the hardcore/punk band Deep Wound and Mascis' later work with the metal group Upsidedown Cross.) The albums after Barlow left had plenty of dirt and distortion-- especially Green Mind-- but they offered more space in the compositions, probably because Mascis suddenly had more space in general to work with. I'm always reminded of those 90s videos of him skiing or playing golf; you get that kind of cleaner vibe, nobody living all over him anymore.
That feeling continues onto the lilting, sunny I Bet on Sky. The uptempo mid-album track "Pierce the Morning Rain" even sounds a lot like Green Mind's opener "The Wagon", and I Bet is Dinosaur Jr's cleanest sounding album to date. The feel is laidback, and as Mascis promised during the pre-release press run, fairly "funky." He's has always had a knack for lodging hooks in his feedback, but these are some of his tightest pop songs: Tracks like "Watch the Corners" or opener "Don't Pretend You Didn't Know" bring to mind Built to Spill's warm, welcoming psychedelia. This time, outside the more plaintive "What Was That", the downcast vibe comes this time from a pair of Barlow tracks, the prototypical Sebadoh dust-kicker "Rude" and the jaunty, autumnal rocker "Recognition".
Throughout, Mascis' voice is calmer, less ragged; Sky sometimes feels like his acoustic album Several Shades of Why married to a fuller backing band. There's also a push beyond the basic guitar/bass/drums setup with a twinkling piano on"Don't Pretend" and "Stick a Toe In". These tracks and the "Baby Britain" bounce in general bring to mind what Elliott Smith did when he decided to indulge his Beatles obsession on XO. This is not a complaint: It goes well with the graying hair. All in all this is a kinder, gentler Dinosaur-- you won't have another "Severed Lips", sorry-- making a very solid album, one that finds the band gelling with half the fuzz. It's a subtle shift, but this is neither a move away from their sound nor toward the raging rock of old (even with all those warm-and-fuzzy Mascis guitar solos). In the sprawling, happy anthem "I Know It Oh So Well", Mascis asks, "Is there light ahead?" Judging from the music here, the answer is a resounding yes.
