Sonic Youth

SRY 5

In 1983 Sonic Youth released their debut full-length, Confusion is Sex, a dizzying collection of songs so separated from structured mainstream pop that listeners didn't know what to make of it. Although they've since defected to a major label and released a couple of less adventurous albums, their noisy new SYR 5 confirms they still harbor the avant-garde spirit that propelled them to the status of New York indie rock darlings.

Sonic Youth has traditionally had a penchant for the conceptual, and SYR 5 finds this lineup of bassist Kim Gordon accompanied by former DNA member and noise guru Ikue Mori along with turntablist DJ Olive subtly commenting on modernity and growing older.

In "Paperbag/Orange Laptop" Gordon chants "Laptop by my side" over a mind-clouding array of electronic percussion and atonal guitar. The heavy use of electronic noise and Gordon's singing about her personal computer add a heavy 21st century-like feel to the album. Gordon commiserates the mundanity of adult life in "Neu Adult," chanting "Over and over and over" over and over.

"International Spy" begins with an electronic beat reminiscent of those they used for 1987šs Whitey Album, and includes chracteristically breathy Kim Gordon vocals over waves of haunting background noise. Mori and DJ Olive take noise to its peak on the final track, "Take it to the Hit," in which they combine to create pure atonal noise in the vein of the No-Wave scene from which both early Sonic Youth and Morišs DNA developed.

The thinned-out version of the band on SYR 5 seems intent on creating the threatening and occasionally beautiful atmosphere they mastered on their earliest records. While embracing electronica seems a radical step for the normally guitar-heavy Sonic Youth, they convincingly prove their ability to base an entire album on a single concept and show their well of ubiquitous ideas has yet to run dry.