※ 引述《HYR (幸福的瓶子)》之銘言：
: 嘿嘿！我還看過其他 0.0 的專輯，是 Belle & Sebastian 的第三張專輯，
: The Boy with the Arab Strap，看樣子這個網站的樂評滿極端的，
: 看看就好，別太相信....
: 雖然 Radiohead 的 Ok Computer 是 10.0 的滿分...(個人認為實至名歸!)
Sonic Youth
NYC Ghosts & Flowers
Label: Geffen
Genre: Alternative
File Under: Gotham elegies
Rating: 71 <- 這才像樣
(Stereolab The First of the Microbe Hunters Rating: 66)
(Veruca Salt Resolver Rating: 33)
Could the members of Sonic Youth, those avatars of
the Lower East Side vanguard, be feeling nostalgic? Judging from
the dreamy backward glances of their latest effort, the answer is yes.
Fresh from a two-CD tribute to avant-garde composers such as John Cage
and James Tenney, SY has renewed its commitment to all things atonal,
minimal, and otherwise unlikely to show up on suburban radios.
NYC Ghosts and Flowers makes the noise-pop of its last major-label album,
A Thousand Leaves, sound practically Britney Spearsian in comparison.
Teaming once again with Chicago post-rock/improv fixture Jim O'Rourke,
with whom they previously collaborated on a 1998 EP, the band members
unleash meditative, self-consciously poetic jams, solidifying their status as
the hipster's Phish.
The entire record lasts only about 45 minutes, and as the title suggests,
it mirrors the mercurial arc of New York City life. The songs are shot
through with the harsh, unnatural beauty of overcrowded streets, dirt, grime,
freedom, pathos: a distillation of all that makes the city haunting and
unique. Yet the metropolis Sonic Youth describes is quickly disappearing,
if it's not already gone, and their efforts to memorialize it sometimes tip
into self-parody. At its worst, the band's repetitive, improv-based guitar
style becomes a pointless whine, and its elliptical lyrics can be absurdly
solemn. Most egregious in this regard is a ham-fisted ode to hippiedom,
"Small Flowers Crack Concrete," featuring Thurston Moore intoning banalities
like "Death poems for the living gods of America/ Plastic saxophones bleat,
bleed for nothing, nada" in his best Spoken Word Artiste cadence.
As consolation, there are two absolutely transfixing epics. The first,
"Free City Rhymes," begins in a gentle mood, gaining intensity until it
bursts into shimmering guitar fireworks, before revisiting the opening
chords, this time giving them a sinister cast. The second is the title track,
a lyrical meditation on time, distance, and memory, spoken and sung with
un-self-conscious ease by Lee Ranaldo. Though it's not the closing song,
it's a finale of sorts, eulogizing lost connections and evoking the allure of
being one tiny element in a vast metropolis, surrendering to the sweeping
power of circumstance.
At moments like this, Sonic Youth still thrills as only Sonic Youth can,
creating a Rhapsody in Blue for the daydream nation. — Jackie McCarthy
p.s. belle & sebastian六月六日出新片!
--
The story is a sad one, told many times.
The story of my life in trying times.
Just add water, stir in lime.
How the west was won and where it got us.
R.E.M.
--
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