Sonic Youth Bad Moon Rising CD

Sonic Youth: Thurston Moore, Lee Ranaldo (vocals, guitar); Kim Gordon (vocals, bass); Bob Bert (drums).
Recorded at Before Christ Studios, Brooklyn, New York between September and December 1984; Radio Tokyo, Venice, California in January 1985. Includes liner notes by Gerard Cosloy.
An album quite unlike any other in the colorful Sonic Youth canon, Bad Moon Rising captures the New York band in 1985 during its most morose phase, one that is quite forbidding yet fascinating all the same. The proper album is an eight-song tapestry of droning guitar feedback, distant clattering percussion, and dreamy vocal mumblings, all of it woven together by sullen interludes of ambient noise. With the exception of the closing "Death Valley '69," nothing really stands out per se. Each song shares the same late-night shadowy feel as the others, with no outright singalong hooks to be found anywhere; it's just one ambling slab of dark noise rock. "Death Valley '69" then brings it all to a feverish close, driven by runaway guitar riffs and a frantic vocal duet by Thurston Moore and Lydia Lunch. It's a piercing capstone to an otherwise hazy album and is no doubt one of the highlights of Sonic Youth's overall output. Most editions of Bad Moon Rising don't end there, however. DGC's CD-era re-release appends the Flower EP, which fits in rather well. Similarly morose, these few songs are perhaps even more out-there than the Bad Moon Rising ones, especially "Halloween," which is a subtle five minutes of creeping guitar tingles accented beautifully by Kim Gordon's whispery hallucinations. Overall, this music is a definite leap forward from what Sonic Youth had been doing previously on Confusion Is Sex (1983) and Kill Yr. Idols (1983); it plays as one long piece, a work that perhaps reflects the spirit of the time, American gothic through the glassy eyes of willful moonlit paranoia. And as such, it's certainly a step toward EVOL (1986), the band's successive release, which is likewise obsessed with the dark side of America and likewise informed by sweeping waves of ambient guitar noise, but much more song-based and focused than Bad Moon Rising's dreamscape feel. ~ Jason Birchmeier
Coming as it did in the midst of the mid-80s "roots rock" trend, the title of Sonic Youth's second full-length album (cribbed from John Fogerty) and its strangely evocative front cover photo of a burning pumpkin-headed scarecrow, BAD MOON RISING almost seemed to fit in with the post-BORN IN THE USA genre of "Portrait of America" albums. But where albums by the Long Ryders or Green On Red saluted the working class or society's forgotten, Sonic Youth's idea of an American portrait included the nihilistic Manson Family narrative "Death Valley '69"--with guest vocals by poet/singer Lydia Lunch--and the nearly impenetrable "Brave Men Run (In My Family)." "I Love Her All the Time" is another highlight, foreshadowing the more pop-oriented direction of future albums. This expanded CD includes three bonus tracks, "Satan Is Boring," "Flower" and "Halloween."Entertainment Weekly (3/31/95, p.62) - "...BAD MOON RISING surrounds a catchy ditty about mass murder with mood music and dirge poetry..." - Rating: B
Q (7/96, p.144) - 3 Stars - Good - "...more dynamically interesting, if still pretty squallish, and contained the rumbling, gargantuan `Death Valley '69'..."
Alternative Press (7/95, p.87) - Ranked #42 in AP's list of the `Top 99 Of '85-'95' "...BAD MOON RISING caught Sonic Youth in the midst of their ascent to becoming arguably the most influential band of the '80s..."
Melody Maker (5/4/96, p.58) - "...what's cool about Sonic Youth is their detatchment, the feeling that they're consummate art school poseurs contriving sullenness, self-loathing and rage. They don't mean it, maaan....all manicured noise and manufactured nihilism..."
Mojo (Publisher) (3/03, p.76) - Ranked #41 in Mojo's "Top 50 Punk Albums" - "...A string of hazy tranquil guitar fug culminates in Death Valley '69's twisted, Manson-inspired horror dialogue..."