Dinosaur Jr, the stereotypical slackers. Mascis, Barlow, Murph (just Murph): three early-twentysomethings still overburdened by a torpid adolescence and a disastrous dress sense. With battered guitar, bass, and kit, they carry around a catalogue of songs that betrays identities half-formed at best, schizoid at worst.
But listen. 1987, a new album, a snapshot of a moment when a furious musical intensity swung upwards and pushed their lyrics and Mascis's vocal whine far into the margins. Searing riffs, mountainous solos, and the tightest of fills ? underpinned by stream-of-consciousness structures and a palette of crazed effects ? steal the show. These three build a one-off sound that stirred up the hardening alternative mainstream and drove it to distraction. You're Living All Over Me: supposedly Mascis's indictment of what it was like to tour in a van with these other two misfits, but also testimony to the obsession ? an itch, a disease ? that the band's disengagement from their world had produced. This record cares so little it cares a lot.
But listen. 1987, a new album, a snapshot of a moment when a furious musical intensity swung upwards and pushed their lyrics and Mascis's vocal whine far into the margins. Searing riffs, mountainous solos, and the tightest of fills ? underpinned by stream-of-consciousness structures and a palette of crazed effects ? steal the show. These three build a one-off sound that stirred up the hardening alternative mainstream and drove it to distraction. You're Living All Over Me: supposedly Mascis's indictment of what it was like to tour in a van with these other two misfits, but also testimony to the obsession ? an itch, a disease ? that the band's disengagement from their world had produced. This record cares so little it cares a lot.
