Dinosaur Jr.
Give a Glimpse of What Yer Not

This album has some production and mixing flaws. In the case of Dinosaur Jr., it's quite serious because - apart from a few miraculous songs - after the reunion, the general sense of their continued existence has returned to being the big sound [copyright symbol]: that full and powerful thing that happens when J, Lou, and Murph play together and makes you say they are one of those bands you would never change anything about, stay just the way you are, never fight again, J and Lou, and continue to make an album every two years, please, the cover is beautiful, I'll buy it.

If in I Bet On Sky, the last album, some deflation of the sound was not too disturbing because there was a sense of wanting to try some new rhythm, some moment a bit like this and that, here instead, it's hard to explain the loss of weight of I Walk For Miles, for example.
What a shame, because I Walk For Miles beats everyone for swaggering riff and the solo that seems to come down and slap you hard with the back of the hand. Especially the second solo: which really isn't second because the first one ends, the chorus starts, and J Mascis sings but the flow of pentatonics and bending doesn't stop, one-two, underneath; then the second one starts and ah here, yes the supersonic guitar emerges. And so maybe the rest was sacrificed in the mixing area to highlight this moment. But if a piece like Forget It, but even Out There, used to give that boost of volume and pump, it's also due to a solidarity between mixing and the dynamics inherent in the piece. So, perhaps, something was lost even in writing. Still, all that reverb on the voice can't be explained: do you want to confer epicness? To J Mascis's voice? Seriously? Then there's also another solo.

In Farm, almost everything worked, in this sense. Since Farm, I've been saying: from now on, Dinosaur Jr. reviews should be done by those who understand solos, to see what is inspired and what is not, analyze the patterns, the things, and see if J innovates or re-elaborates, how intense it is. Make a relevant and accurate analysis, in short. From my end, since I know little, I can say that if J Mascis's solos were a human being, they would be Mr. Clean, but black with afro hair, moving like Ibrahimovic when he celebrates with his arms wide and with Batman's voice from the Nolan films. In an eventual Rolling Stone ranking of the 500 best solos of Dinosaur Jr. from Beyond onwards, anyway, the last one in Watch The Corners would rank at the top: discuss.

Let's face it and say Good To Know is really bad. What the hell kind of start is it? Is it possible? And J, you know how to use that wah better. And then the solo is too short. Then the track picks up a bit, but the structure isn't clear, where is it going? What's the intention? Oh, what do we have here? Another solo. Then it ends.

For the rest, everything is fine, come on.
There are the songs that are juxtapositions of choruses with solos in between. All positive and major vocal lines with the voice in falsetto at a high octave. After Green Mind, it continues like this, although the secret is that the best songs in this sense are on More Light, released under the name J Mascis and The Fog. Goin Down and Tiny open the album really well, making you feel at home.

There are the usual two Barlow songs, sung by Barlow, which are always well not bad but Bakesale is better, what was the last one called? Together or Alone? It always gives me the lump in the throat, excuse the graphic rhyme. Love Is is a bit embarrassing, but even here the mixing doesn't help, it seems that everything loses strength compared to the album's average. Voice too forward, production too pushed, and at a certain point, J Mascis arrives and does the solo, and everything seems stuck, forced. Left - Right, the other one, wouldn't be bad either, but even here I can't tell if it's really the high quality of the recordings that doesn't suit Barlow's voice, if they messed up in production, or if the quality of the song isn't such to make me overlook the issues. However, it seems to me like Patti Smith's recordings for a charity compilation, sung by Eddie Vedder's less talented brother. I'm sorry, excuse me.

And here too, there are the usual minor ballads, like Be A Part, which if they weren't by Dinosaur Jr. you wouldn't listen to even out of love, but they have going for them that at a certain point the solos arrive, inexorably. Dinosaur Jr. are among the few who can afford to be pretentious, possibly mannered. This is because even those who don't listen to pretentious and possibly mannered music in life, every now and then, feel like having their minor, rehashed ballad. They put it on an album sung with a dragged, tired, slightly off-key voice; with tasteful artwork, cool cover; with the drummer who has punk dynamics and you can always feel that he has them; with the bass that the way Lou Barlow tortures that Rickenbacker 4003, maybe no one else can; with guitars that wander between medium dirty and very dirty, even in the arpeggios, everywhere; with the solos; with the vibe of those who played You're Living All Over Me and Bug and it’s not something that can be lost.