Dinosaur Jr - Farm
PIAS/Liberation
By Andrew P Street
I was honestly, genuinely dreading this record. Dinosaur Jr had done the seemingly impossible with 2007's Beyond by reforming and making a record that genuinely ranked among their best. How many other reunited combos could make that boast (The Go-Betweens? Sure. Mission of Burma? OK. Echo & The Bunnymen? Arguably. And then there's ... um...).
The beauty of D-Jr is that it just sounds exactly like D-Jr, and – as on Beyond – singer/guitarist J Mascis, bassist/singer Lou Barlow and drummer Murph are happy to let themselves be themselves. The big chords and lacksidaisical vocals of the opening ‘Pieces' could have sat on any album post-Bug, ‘I Don't Wanna Go There' is a mountain of fuzz guitar and ‘There's No Here' opens with a guitar solo that Neil Young would weep over. Mascis isn't afraid to try out new things either, as the wah-wah of the superb ‘Over It' demonstrates. Barlow's two 60s-tinged contributions are also up to standard: ‘Your Weather' is a harmony-filled slab of rock, while ‘Imagination Blind' ends the album on a stomping note.
There are a few dead spots, though: ‘Friends' is a dull piece of blues saved by Murph lifting the song with a series of extended rolls, while the ballad ‘Said The People' is either making an evocative musical reference or demonstrating that Mascis was running out of ideas, since its chorus has the exact same chord progression as that of ‘Pieces'. Still, Farm demonstrates that Dinosaur Jr's record as the only post-reformation band to still matter artistically remains untarnished.
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