http://www.playlouder.com/review/+rather-ripped/
Rather Ripped
Sonic Youth
4/5
A quarter of a century on from their inception in a furious blizzard of New York art noise Sonic Youth still live up to the noun in their name. Live, Thurston Moore brims with youthful enthusiasm, flopping his blonde locks around, clambering up speaker stacks and gadding about like a public school boy playing rockstars. Kim Gordon still looks incredible in attire most commonly suited to Top Shop girls, while the band's adherence to a DIY aesthetic continues to convey the enthusiasm of a stamp-collecting teenage nerd.
So what's interesting about 'Rather Ripped' is how Sonic Youth have at once made their most mature album, yet left none of their trademark edginess on the cutting room floor. It's worth noting, though, that the praise being lauded on 'Rather Ripped' over any of Sonic Youth's album's over the past few years is perhaps misguided. This isn't necessarily a superior album to 'Murray Street' or 'Sonic Nurse' (though it's certainly a more consistent one), it's more that 'Rather Ripped's great success is in refining the strengths of those records to something at once accessible and challenging.
This is done through the recurrent musical methodology of 'Rather Ripped' - and it's one that makes the album's buff title rather appropriate. For the likes of 'What A Waste' and 'The Neutral' a simple skin of guitar melody is locked tight to Kim Gordon's vocal line as the rhythm section plays a rippling and muscular groove beneath, while in the chorus Sonic Youth allow themselves the modicum of messing around with distortion.
The vocals (indeed, Moore and Gordon's almost meditative tones are superb throughout 'Rather Ripped') drive 'Do You Believe In Rapture?' to be as reflective as Sonic Youth have ever been, while 'Jams Run Free' positively skips along with a jovial lightness before the last thirty seconds are dappled with restrained, yet insistent, guitar murmer. 'Rats', meanwhile, is built around a dense back wall of growling feedback, atop which a dappled melody is allowed to sprawl.
And of course, 'Rather Ripped' takes some fine wanders into the twilight. The six-minute 'Turquoise Boy' builds gradually until, when you're least expecting it, Sonic Youth unleash a driven, howling crescendo, Steve Shelley's drums tumping moodily in the background. It's followed by 'Lights Out', which sees Thurston murmuring dark threats, while penultimate track 'Pink Steam' is another longer, furious- sounding number.
The only weak spot is the final track 'Or', where Sonic Youth finally succumb to the cliché of having a bit of a moan about the day job, with Moore wearily reciting a list of dumb questions PlayLouder's lesser contemporaries all-too-frequently fling at them: "What comes first? The music or the words?"
But this concluding blip aside 'Rather Ripped' is the most accomplished and mature album Sonic Youth have done in years. And while some might grumble that this new-found sense of calm (and, indeed, a peculiar absence of pretension) is too much of a concession to the mainstream, they can always took to any of the band's challenging side-projects for more malignant diversions. And it's interesting that this album is Sonic Youth's final obligation for Geffen. Could 'Rather Ripped' be a graceful bowing out of the mainstream, before an onslaught from the incredible hulk of their avant-garde inclinations?
Luke Turner