Listened for the fourth time today. The album is just really, really great.
There's no "Sleepin' Around" to make me go, "Ugh what the fuck".

i really like the album. the sound is great and i dig most melodies. still, i would have liked to trade some "rock riffs" for some shifting guitar harmonies. they barely do this since sonic nurse.

btw...poison arrow sounds like girls vs. boys covering lou reed..in a good way :-)

true fans don't think poison arrow sounds like girls vs. boys covering lou reed..in a good way :-)

Glad someone else caught that, I was starting to think I was going crazy on that.

Yep, it's there. King Crimson :D
Sure, Thurston must have known what he's doing. And it works great.
Along with "Massage The History" my favourite track from the album.

I love the tinges of darkness on Antenna. I didn't catch the Court of the Crimson King thing, but now that you point it out I do.

omg you
there's no such thing as true fans

only trve fans

Just finished listening to it for the third time. What a great surprise, a good new Sonic Youth album that I feel like listening to over and over again, save for a few tracks that I don't like at all. I'm too tired to write more, I'll just say that 'Massage The History' is as great a song as its title would suggest. One of the best Kim Gordon vocal deliveries ever, quite beautiful.

Lee's songs on Eternal are throwaways, though he's been hurting since "Paper Cup," in my opinion. "Rats" is an unimaginative variation on "Mote" with all the energy sapped. It was good live. But not as good as "Reena," "Rapture," "Jams," "Pink Steam" etc. Rather Ripped was definitely, for me, more song-oriented. Eternal is more interesting sounding, though. SY has always been about melding the experimental soundscape with inventive songwriting. Eternal comes closer to this for me than Rather Ripped, although the latter has some great songs. Think of it this way: someone could easily get away with covering "Reena" or "The Neutral" and it would sound great. Clearly the SY sound is inessential to that album, but the songs endure.

I'm addicted to those subtle eastern sounding undertones in Leaky Lifeboat. I'm not sure what it is, sort of sounds like a ring modded guitar but not really. Probably more of an intense envelope filter effect or something like that.

Good points.

I jokingly asked if RR had songwriting though because the songs on RR are rather simple verse/chorus/verse type affairs. Of course there is writing though.

my exact thought

I wish Walkin Blue would go on for another minute or two...
I know it may be too early to say, but it may be one of my all-time favorite songs. Shit, it's beautiful.

This album reminds me so much of Washing Machine. Does anyone else feel like Walkin' Blue is a harder and slightly darker Saucer-Like ?

Really enjoying the Eternal. As with all Sonic albums, a few listens reveals greater nuances to wallow in. This album also finds them copping some of their cheesiest rock moves and, for some reason, it works. The whole thing's fairly solid. Walkin' Blue has a cool psychedelic shimmer. Massage the History is gorgeous. Even the weakest tracks are decent (Thunderclap and Poison Arrow).

Definitely a Rather Ripped beater, cannae wait to cop it on wax.

Hmmm, I don't really hear that at all.
I hear quite a few other recycled riffs in other songs. Most notably, Calming the Snake which reminds me of Plastic Sun redux (but much better)

I don't see what's so cheesy about the rocking fuzzed out riffs that they've been jamming on. I don't see what's so wrong with rock and fucking roll. Like that one in What We Know. I love it.

I don't really hear Plastic Sun in Calming the Snake. Though I do hear stuff here and there on albums. They do that on just about every album though.

i wish i could feel this , but i really don't AT ALL.
awesome songs though.

I feel that a little bit in that it is an album that is more sonically explorative.
Except no stinkers like "Panty Lies"

I've only had a couple listens through this, so I'm not going to make any wild statements until I've actually become that accustomed to it. One thing that sticks out on my first listens though is the production on the vocals- I really don't like it- sounds too glossy to me. Kim's vocals on Sacred Trickster and Calming The Snake are maybe the best examples of this.. that echo is buck nasty. She'd have benefitted without the echo, maybe some distorted effect instead. It'd make the vocal more immediate and in keeping with the rockin riffage beneath. Oh also the way Kim has reused that 'Come on down to the river' line from Nevermind (What Was it Anyway) is really bugging me. And Thurston's singing on Thunderclap is embarrassing.