CD Review

After a 25 year career producing 20 albums of splendid white noise, Sonic Youth has nothing left to prove. Though somehow their 21st album, Rather Ripped, keeps us wondering if the band’s best years are happening right now.

Showcasing their tightest arrangements to date, according to Thurston Moore, Rather Ripped is "a super song record" containing "rockers and ballads," and you’d have to agree. In their attempt at “noise free,” Kim Gordon sounds more melodic than ever on the opener “Reena. ” Alongside her, that interwoven guitar cat and mouse game between Moore and Lee Renaldo is alive and well, as “Incinerate” keys off the tension and buildup guitar workouts of 2004’s Sonic Nurse. And behind it all, with the absence of sometime band member Jim O’Rouke, SY’s sound is stripped to a solid core that stands as a blueprint for any modern day hipster.

No new ground is really broken with highlights “Do You Believe in Rapture?” and “Rats,” but its too late in the game for a concept album or radical reinvention anyway. Here’s to another quarter decade of the same recipe, even if its "rockers and ballads."