 | Dinosaur Jr. |
Well I will admit this is long overdue, but I am going to make an effort to try and get back through some 2009 releases before we hit the end of the year on some I haven’t been able to write up yet. First up is the second reunion effort from a personal favorite Dinosaur Jr. as they released Farm back in the summer. They did a whole tour in support of the record but I was unfortunately unable to make their show here in Dallas as I was in Chicago at the time. I would have liked to have seen these tunes live though and I have to say that I think they have made a record that is certainly better than the initial reunion record Beyond and brings a little bit more to the table in what makes Dinosaur great.
Beyond was a really good record, don’t get me wrong, but I think that when they reunited for that album and for that tour they were singularly focused on the ‘old/original’ Dinosaur Jr. and on tour and on the record they were only concerned with recreating that. Now, there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that, but there are some parts of the old Dinosaur that were great and some parts of the post-Barlow Dinosaur that were great as well. J certainly grew in his abilities and some of his song making and focusing so heavily on the original material was a bit limiting I felt like. When I saw the reunion tour here at Gypsy Tea Room they played exclusively original lineup material (no ‘Out There’, no ‘Feel The Pain’, no ‘Wagon’, etc). I also felt like with Beyond they were really trying to make a purely original Dinosaur kind of album and to really fit that album into what the original J, Lou, Murph lineup had done back in the day.
This is where Farm shines I think. This is still the original lineup but it is a much fresher and freer album than the previous one and it really takes on a life of its own and becomes a true continuation of the Dinosaur albums and a next step. One of the things that J picked up in the post-original lineup days was a more melodic, hookier, fun and carefree kind of vibe whereas the original Dinosaur material is a little more raw punk, etc. This album kind of combines in the more freewheeling aspects of the J-only Dinosaur years and brings us killer songs like “Over It” (my favorite Dinosaur song they have done in a long while). It’s fun, it’s upbeat and it’s typical Dinosaur where you just turn it up and blow it out. This is the kind of song that just didn’t exist in early Dinosaur and I’m glad they have taken a bit of a step away from the reunion haze to try and do some newer kind of material.
“Pieces” is another great song that bridges the gap between the last album and this one. A little more carefree and a little looser, but still very guided and shred-tastic. “Plans” and “See You” bring in some of the more folk-y alterna-pop kinds of songs J was experimenting with later in the original run of Dinosaur and works very well in the record here. I think you will find a lot of really good stuff that doesn’t betray the ‘original-ness’ of the reunited lineup but also gives J a little more wiggle room to be freed up and just do what he does best. Later in the original run of Dinosaur it became clear J was really experimenting around and trying different things and this album kind of explores more in that sense and breaks out of the reunion constraints I felt they had a little bit on the last record.
I highly recommend checking this album out, especially if you are a Dinosaur fan from back in the day, I think this is their best album in a while, and it really shows that J is still going strong and still kicking out awesome songs. And if you don’t know of Dinosaur this is probably a good place to get your feet wet a bit and see what’s it’s all about since it is more all-encompassing of their prior work than Beyond was, and then go back and explore the greatness of the back-catalog. J does it again, you have got to love it.
