1998

The ageless Sonic Youth return with a new, yet familiar, excursion into their own particular brand of ultra-amplified, dissonant rock. The quartet's CD A Thousand Leaves evokes fond memories of yesteryear's noisy, now-classic, avant-garde approach, while retaining snippets of traditional pop elements heard on several of their previous major-label releases. As Sonic Youth's music has gained a larger audience, they've preserved doses of the crunched melody and meandering structure that has always been their trademark. The new release sounds relatively unabashed, with wandering songs like "Female Mechanic Now on Duty" spewing extended barrages of feedback and Kim Gordon's dry, unsettling scowls at the listener. Look deeper, however, and there's a quiet resonance among the racket, with tracks like "Sunday" and "Snare, Girl" making use of Thurston Moore's cooler vocal tone and jagged, cascading guitar passages. --Matthew Cooke