Sonic Youth
A Thousand Leaves

THE REVIEW

With the beautiful "Washing Machine," Sonic Youth's creative vein seemed rejuvenated after their latest performances, which were less original and more mainstream-leaning.
And so in 1998, after a series of experimental EPs released under the SYR label, "A Thousand Leaves," the new and highly anticipated album from Sonic Youth, was released.

With "A Thousand Leaves," Moore & company further soften their sound, preferring refined guitar interweavings to the noise extremism of their early albums, now increasingly absent in their latest productions.
And this album only confirms the good things we heard in "Washing Machine": it begins with "Contre Le Sexisme," where background noise accompanies Kim Gordon's flat singing, followed by other beautiful tracks like the single "Sunday" (wonderful video!), "Wildflower Soul," the tribute to Allen Ginsberg "Hits Of Sunshine," 11 emotional minutes whispered by the immense Thurston Moore, "Karen Koltrane," and the very slow "Snare, Girl," with slow and stretched-out rhythms similar to "Unwind."

Perhaps in a couple of tracks ("The Ineffable Me," "Heather Angel") Kim Gordon's polemical invective seems a bit out of place, but these are only occasional moments, which do not affect the album's beauty, a real gem in Sonic Youth's discography.
And it matters little if "A Thousand Leaves" did not have the hoped-for sales success: while remaining a highly underrated album, it is certainly one of the peaks reached by the New York band in their twenty-year career, a career that has almost never known moments of decline, and the recent and excellent "Sonic Nurse" is proof of that. Legendary.