Albums by this artist

The overlap between the time Sonic Youth could have benefited from being signed to a major label and the time they actually have been signed to one was short. It is also long over. NYC Ghosts & Flowers is the third record in a trilogy of albums which have tried vainly to reconcile the band's pronounced experimental leanings with the slight commercial demands being on a major forces upon them.

Since the band is able to release whatever it wants apart from Geffen -- the Musical Perspectives series, now four volumes strong, is a continously improving set of mesmerizing free improvisations -- it's unclear what they stand to gain from reining themselves in, other than the enmity of their fans and the confusion of newcomers. The successful songs on NYC Ghosts -- and there are several -- indicate that not all of this wrangling has been in vain. There may indeed exist a comfortable middle ground for today's Sonic Youth. They're getting closer to it. They're not there yet.

The best songs on NYC Ghosts & Flowers, like the tinkling "Free City Rhymes" and the semi-conventional "Nevermind (What Was It Anyway)," which actually seems to have chords, hold down some sort of center, mostly in Steve Shelley's drums and producer Jim O'Rourke's bass. Nearly all of the songs end less structured than they begin. These minute-or-so codas seem to be where SY get out most of their prog leanings on Ghosts & Flowers, their best solution yet. Washing Machine threw all of its chips to "Diamond Sea," an incredible 19-minute symphony of consonance and dissonance, unfortunately, the rest of the record seemed like an afterthought. A Thousand Leaves went the other way, letting nearly every song outstay its welcome. Ghosts & Flowers, for the most part, manages to be experimental without being hookless, structured without being routine.

The big downside is the lyrics. It seems the band has pretty much lost interest in pop singing entirely. "Small Flowers Crack Concrete" and "StreamXsonik Subway" rely on dumb-ass beat poetry for most of their length. Both would have been better off as instrumentals, with the exception of "Concrete"'s much nicer sung middle section. On the title track, however, Lee Ranaldo's detached reading segues into stunningly competent singing midverse, here, where the spoken parts are serving a narrative function than merely being used to fill a void, they're far more acceptable. It's rather surprising that a Lee-sung song serves as the centerpiece of this record, possibly for the first time in Sonic Youth history, but it's emblematic of Ghosts & Flowers' nature as a whole. Establishing themselves first as a band, then as individuals, now SY's members try and mesh all that's come before into a coherent whole. It's a wildly overambitious undertaking, and one can see how NYC Ghosts & Flowers' numerous deficiencies snaked their way in there.

First of all, in the attempt to keep songs concise -- only "Rhymes" and "NYC Ghosts" top six minutes, and both earn it -- the album came out short. The awful, single-idea, lyrically stunted "Side2side" and "Lightnin'" no doubt emerged as attempts to pad it out. Second, the band's abilities as musicians far outstrip their skill as poets. Trying to find words that matched up to the free-noise fervor of "NYC Ghosts & Flowers" and "Renegade Princess" might have been more than they were up to. The most ludicrous moment on Goodbye 20th Century, the band's recent "experimental composers" tribute, came early on when Kim Gordon began reciting nursery rhyme text over a cloud of sawing guitars and clattering percussion. Clearly, the attempt to match word to sound is an ongoing one, and Sonic Youth haven't reconciled their current musical direction with the lyrics being delivered over it.

The SY records Ghosts & Flowers has most in common with -- the confused, dark, and abstract but not expressly loud EVOL and Sister -- prefaced their greatest accomplishment to date, Daydream Nation. It remains to be seen whether Ghosts & Flowers is a step in the right direction or the last gasp of a band who has lost sight of its purpose. It's not perfect all the way through, but it's worth listening to. We still owe Sonic Youth enough to give them that chance.

MARK T.R. DONOHUE | Mark T.R. Donohue is a prolific freelance writer whose areas of expertise include Rockies baseball, video games, genre television, English soccer, and pub rock. He lives in Colorado, where he cultivates the largest and creepiest private collection of Alyson Hannigan memorabilia in the Mountain West.