Dinosaur Jr Beyond CD

Composer: J Mercis.
Audio Mixer: John Agnello.
Recording information: Bisquiteen, Amherst, MA (2006).
Photographer: Philipp Virus.
As one of the seminal college-rock bands of the late '80s/early '90s, Dinosaur Jr. definitively bridged the gap between the musical mindsets of '80s "alternative" and '90s "indie." Along the way, they influenced scads of young slackers wielding fuzzy guitars and moldy Neil Young albums. The recordings around which the band's legend largely revolves (GREEN MIND, YOU'RE LIVING ALL OVER ME, BUG) epitomized the slacker-rock aesthetic through J. Mascis's laid-back drawl and the band's Crazy Horse-meets-Replacements attack. After bassist Lou Barlow split for Sebadoh, Dinosaur Jr. attained more commercial success before falling apart, the final album popping out in 1997. A decade later, Mascis and Barlow reunited for a tour that led to the recording of BEYOND.
While the post-Barlow Dinosaur albums found Mascis pushing the edges of the group's original stylistic template, BEYOND is a resounding return to form. The crunching guitars and whomping rhythm section move as one, hammering out simple, forceful riffs and rhythms that evoke the band's glory days. The proceedings are invested with so much energy that even the notoriously laconic-sounding Mascis sounds hopped up on the excitement of rediscovery the magic and electricity that made Dinosaur Jr. special from the beginning.
More than most bands, Dinosaur Jr. left behind some unfinished business -- not just in one regard but two. First, there was the notoriously acrimonious dismissal of original bassist Lou Barlow after the group's third album, Bug, just before the band made the leap to the majors, but when the time came for guitarist/singer/songwriter J Mascis to retire the band's name, he slyly turned the words of his idol Neil Young upside down, choosing to fade away rather than burn out. After 1997's Hand It Over, Mascis ran out the clock, bringing his contract with Sire/Reprise to a close, doing some solo acoustic tours before forming the Fog and cutting a couple records with them without making any real impact outside of his devoted fans. And since he didn't break beyond his cult, Dinosaur Jr. seemed to belong solely to the history books -- the band that bridged the gap between the Replacements and Nirvana, the band that was seminal but not widely popular, a band that for whatever reason wasn't passed down to younger brothers and sisters the way their Boston compatriots the Pixies were. Perhaps it was because, unlike the Pixies, they summed up their times too well, since there was no other alt-rock musician that was as quintessentially slacker as J Mascis. With his laconic drawl and anthems of ambivalence, he was a figurehead for a generation who chose to stay on the sidelines, so sliding away from the spotlight was a logical path for Mascis: he never seemed to really want the fame, so it seemed that he'd be happier on the fringe, which is where he wound up.
All of this made the reunion of the classic J-Lou-Murph lineup in 2005 all the more surprising: there may have been unfinished business, but such a mess seemed inherent to their mystique. But the group got together to tour in support of reissues of their first three albums, and defying all logic, the reunion worked -- working so well that the band decided to record a full-length album, Beyond, releasing it in May 2007. The very existence of this new album is a surprise, but the real shock is that Beyond is a flat-out great record, a startling return to form for J Mascis as a guitarist and songwriter and Dinosaur Jr. as a band. Although this is from the lineup responsible for You're Living All Over Me and Bug, two records so drenched in noise they still sound like aural assaults decades after their original release, Beyond sonically resembles latter-day Dinosaur albums; it's not as harsh and it's stylistically varied, ranging from full-throttle rockers to skipping country-rockSpin (p.85) - 3.5 stars out of 5 -- "From the swirling haze of 'Almost Ready' to the electrocuted folk of 'Lightning Bulb,' even the production of BEYOND sounds plucked from the trio's BUG heyday."
Entertainment Weekly (p.68) - "[With] J Mascis' guitar as blistering as ever and the group's considerable energy undiminished." -- Grade: B+
Mojo (Publisher) (p.104) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "Given that the core Dino signature has seeped into alt-rock's basic vocabulary, this exercise feels inimitable rather than dated..."