During "I Met The Stones", a number on the new album from Dinosaur Jr., J Mascis sounds like a man who's smiling while he's playing. The cut, a familiar bit of fuzzy business strung around an incendiary guitar solo, lurches forward and around a listener's head, J's vocals boasting that he met the Stones, has seen the world, and that it was a lot. Words to that effect. It's an oddly spry bit of business from a band I think most of us might not have expected to make such an assured return in 2021.
Sweep It Into Space, the new record out on Friday via Jagjaguwar, delivers the things we love about this trio, like the slouching grace of "To Be Waiting", or the punchy twang of "I Ran Away", but throughout all of this is an ease that's surprising even for Murph, J, and Lou Barlow. Never ones for over-production, Dinosaur Jr. have settled into a sound that's so assured as to be what I imagine J would sound like if he rolled out of bed in the morning (afternoon) and plugged in an amp. Things just work here, and they work so simply and effortlessly that it's like I fell in love with this band all over again.
And while the Mascis-smack is all over Sweep It Into Space, there are other pleasures here, like the Led Zeppelin III-isms of "Garden", one of the numbers with Barlow on lead vocals. It's a lovely bit of business and almost surprising for something on a Dino record. Equally surprising is "And Me", a track that sounds more like The Cure than did the band's own famous cover of "Just Like Heaven" nearly four decades ago. A clear highlight here, the composition reveals how revitalized Mascis and crew sound here, the actual approach of this trio being somehow lighter and still comfortably scuzzy. Things are concise, even when they momentarily sound like they're about to disintegrate. I've always liked that feeling of looseness in old Dinosaur Jr. recordings, but I relish that the playing is now imperceptibly tighter, even as J's relaxed enough to allow new emotions to creep in around the beloved riffs we came here for in the first place.
Sweep It Into Space is out on Friday via Jagjaguwar.
More details on Dinosaur Jr. via the band's official website.
[Photo: Cara Totman]