Dinosaur Jr.
Farm (Jagjaguwar)

Dinosaur Jr.’s major-label years get a bum rap. Conventional wisdom holds that, when singer-guitarist J. Mascis booted bassist Lou Barlow out in 1989 and signed to Sire Records the following year, the band immediately started a slide into mediocrity from which it didn’t recover until the original lineup (also featuring drummer Murph) reconvened in 2005.

That revisionist take on the group’s history fails to take two major factors into account—the first being that Mascis released some superb music in the intervening period, and the second being that the reunited band sounds a hell of a lot more like Dinosaur Jr. circa ’93 than it does the trio’s ’80s incarnation. The big-studio sheen has been toned down, but tight, riff-driven songs powered by Mascis’s laconic drawl and mind-bending guitar leads dominate Farm, the follow-up to 2007’s Beyond. In contrast to the Sire years, however, this is no one-man show. Sure, Mascis is still reportedly writing all of Murph’s drum parts, but Barlow gets a couple of his own songs in: “Imagination Blind” and the galloping, acid-etched “Your Weather”, which boasts one of the most harmonically rich choruses in the Dinosaur Jr. catalogue.

The new spirit of camaraderie that apparently binds the three veteran alt-rockers together would seem to inform many of the songs here, particularly the tellingly titled “Friends”, which opens with Mascis admitting “I need a hand.” And as for the long-standing acrimony between him and Barlow, let’s assume that the title of “Over It” sums that up neatly. In any case, that cut is one of the disc’s highlights, with its relentlessly propulsive drums and its wicked wah-wah riff.

Equally worthy, but in a very different way, is “Said the People”, a dramatic slow burner that devotes about half of its seven minutes and 42 seconds to a pair of muscular guitar solos, all effortlessly flowing ache and melody.

Nothing on Farm deviates much from the Dinosaur Jr. rule book, but Mascis, Barlow, and Murph clearly have a good thing going these days—so why mess with it?

Download This: “Over It”