Dinosaur Jr.
Where You Been

American Doubt  

A group that has already gone down in history (of rock), for having fundamentally changed it, for having forged a style, given substance to a form and matter, these latter terms inseparable, just as inseparable as word and sound in a song. Defined as "the American answer to the JAMC," and as "the pioneers of grunge," Dinosaur Jr of J(oseph) Mascis, Lou Barlow (later founder of Sebadoh) and "Murph" are authors of excellent-level works, including at least one landmark: "Green Mind."

The intuition behind the music of the "dinosaurs" is simple and brilliant: to create a meld of guitar noise feedback and melodies that, due to their very nature, barely manage to surface from such a noisy and swirling sound, almost risking being continuously pulled back in. An admirer of Neil Young and (apparently) of English Punk (Clash, Pistols) and American (Crass, Ramones...) as well as Noise-Core (Washington D.C and surroundings), metal, and bands like Minutemen and Husker Du, "J" Mascis applies a sort of extreme concept of the "wall of sound," Phil Spector's wall of sound, to create, compared to the original version ("a compact sound, just slightly distorted like a record player at a slightly too loud volume" teaches Marco De Dominicis) a distortion on the edge of listenable, an effect that would forever change the concept of the very use of the electric guitar in rock. Contemporaries, in terms of parallel destinies and level of influence, of two other genius and unrepeatable bands, such as Flaming Lips and Butthole Surfers, Dinosaur Jr arrive with this fifth work (after "Dinosaur [Jr]", "You're Leaving All Over Me", "Bug", "Green Mind") at a more sophisticated and (one might say) "evolved" version of the usual sound and poetic formula. Although the power of the sound is overall dominant, right from the opening with "Out There" and in "What Else Is New", to take on the accelerated and implosive/syncopated appearances of the recent past in two episodes ("Hide" and "On The Way"), a "Sonic-Youth-ian" declination of rock'n roll (Rolling Stones, of course), there are at least three tracks in which the contributions of guitar-noise and poignant and lyrical melody definitely change dosage, moving the cursor towards the latter: "Drawerings" is a magnificent and imposing ballad, one of the gems of the album (it almost seems to gather the melodic echo of a "Ziggy Stardust" in a noise-core key, slowed and paced for the 90s in a... Jurassic version, indeed), "Get Me" (first single released) already sounds like a generational anthem, an American declination of British indie-rock ("I dont see you, I wont call you I dont know enough to stall you is it me, or is it all you?") but it is in the six-plus minutes of "Not The Same" that the Dinosaurs illuminate us with something unusual and never heard before: a completely acoustic ballad, for guitar, cellos, plates, and voice, a bit (a lot?) out of tune and/or, as if it were constantly on the verge of breaking with emotion: it’s the effect that counts; "J" recites verses (these indeed) of high, sometimes very high lyrical talent. The great journalist Alberto Campo writes of them "Dinosaur Jr are America’s Cure, that is a stripped-down version of the frills (aesthetic pomposity, decadent attitude, etc) that weigh down the original prototype". Clearly, not only the cover of "Just Like Heaven" which appeared on the back of "Freak Scene," but (above all) the recent American tour supporting R. Smith's band must have further left a mark.

The Dinosaur, in summary, are truly the poetic-musical counterpart of English indie rock, that is minimalist focus on the inner microcosm and music that is the calligraphic transliteration of it (listen to the lingering riffs of the best of these groups: Stereolab and Boo Radleys, noisy dissonances, melancholic melodies, background anger, but as if held back, without ever reaching a conclusion, perhaps because it doesn’t want to... until that "Creep" which sounds much like the "Smells Like Teen Spirits" from Albion). The Cure on one side, Sonic Youth and Nirvana on the other, that is exactly what characterizes this slice of the decade for being situated between "mainstream rock" and "alternative rock," as well as (and partly consequently) between classic and modern.

It may not be "the" best album of theirs (even if the level, very high, is that of the aforementioned other masterpieces) but it will surely be thanks to this work and the historical period in which it emerges, that Dinosaur Jr will leave a mark on the audience of great occasions, even outside the narrow confines of Alternative Rock: the tastes of the "average" audience are changing and it is visible from the Anglo-American and European Charts. And the hypnotic scribe dares to pronounce that no success was (or will be) more deserved. There would then be to understand why, although rock is not our thing, (the same can be said for blues, jazz, and hip-hop), Italy has nonetheless for decades spawned generations of rock bands of stratospheric level (from Area to Uzeda) that would have deserved... but, as the post-Dylan Western Edoardo would say "I don’t want to delve too deeply into the matter / because what I’m writing is just a... de-review."