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• Sonic Youth cements art rock legacy with 16th studio release, The Eternal

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Sonic Youth - The Eternal

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To say Sonic Youth’s latest record, The Eternal, is the group’s most mature effort to date is a bit of an odd statement to make. The band, which formed in 1981, has churned out more earnest art rock than half the indie kids could shake a stick at these days — but the maturity in The Eternal comes not from their age (as they’re all in their 50s now) but from the intensity of the songwriting.

Sonic Youth has managed to elevate its core essence to a higher notion of what the band has always been. In many ways, the purely instinctual creation born to nurse on feedback and chaos that gave us Confusion Is Sex and Washing Machine has been replaced by the most thoughtful Sonic Youth yet.

In the record’s opener, “Sacred Trickster,” Kim Gordon and Steve Shelley (along with new bassist Mark Ibold) ground the band as hard as ever while racing forward in typical New York punk tradition. “We got to get it together and go,” Gordon screams with Thurston Moore in “Leaky Lifeboat (For Gregory Corso),” a tune complete with la-la-la’s.

“Thunderclap (For Bobby Pyn)” is one of the rougher tracks on The Eternal that perhaps expresses the band’s position in 2009, stating “I don’t want to know / who gets highest score / That’s when my poodle pukes / on the gallery floor.”

The Eternal also has its share of sleepy, beautiful numbers. “Antenna” is a radio-friendly, six-minute Thurston Moore psychedelic opus about affection and modernity. “Walkin Blue” operates in a parallel vein, as does “Massage the History,” the album’s final track.

In many ways, “Massage the History” could be an attempt to cement the band’s status as trail-blazing art rock heroes. The very title of the record, The Eternal, has a subdued implication that what Sonic Youth is doing (and has done for the past 28 years) is somehow larger than the band itself — somehow part of the world’s collective unconscious.

So one must ask: How did they reach this point? How did they come to epitomize themselves?

Perhaps the addition of Pavement bassist Mark Ibold has led the band to realize what it has always been, or perhaps the band’s return to the indie record label Matador, after 20 years on a major label, has reinspired them.

It is more likely that the abuse of years of touring has led the group down this path. One of the most heavily poignant songs on The Eternal sums up just that point, as in “What We Know” when Lee Ranaldo howls, “It’s been quite a ride / with you my sweet, here by my side / Funny how the mountains slide / We’re stepping across the great divide.” And aren’t we all curious as to what remains in the great divide?

Don’t miss your chance to catch Sonic Youth live at the Vic Theatre in Chicago on June 27 and 28. Judging from the group’s latest release alone, you won’t be disappointed.