You're Living All Over Me

I found this exhausting to listen to

(3/5) Nothing on this actually grabbed me or inspired me. I liked it fine, and I'm thoroughly impressed it was at least 5 years ahead of this style (grunge/indie/lo fi stuff.. you'd know when you hear it). So, I definitely concur this is essential listening, as they were clearly an influential band for that era (early 90s) of rock. Will I revisit it? Probably not, but it was interesting from that context. Tip of the hat to them and thanks for influencing better bands later.

It’s Dino Jr.! Absolutely there’s some good stuff on here but not a lot i would revisit.

Jamais écouté avant. You're Living All Over Me fait partie de ces rares albums qui semblent être nettement en avance sur leur temps. Sans doute parce que toute la vague grunge qui déferlera sur Seattle quatre-cinq ans plus tard s'inspirera lourdement des textures noise et de l'énergie punk de Dinosaur Jr.. Au-delà de son influence, c'est aussi et surtout un album de guitare jouissif, et la révélation, à travers le bruit et la fureur, des talents de songwriter pop de J. Mascis. Top : Little Fury Things Flop : Lose

V good

As a guitar player I’ve always been intrigued by J Mascis but never enough to listen to a Dinosaur Jr. album until today. I liked this enough to listen to more from them but I’m still not sold.

Just straight noise at points

This was better than the Bug album I heard a few weeks ago. There was a lot less random "noise" on this than before, so I found myself enjoying things more. Nothing really stood out here, however. The ending to everything was a little abrupt.

Nicht melns

Excited for this one - it's been on my list for a while, but I haven't dug in yet. Track one - I get the proto-grunge, proto-shoegaze hype that has been applied to this album - pretty apt in all aspects outside of J. Macis' vocals. The mastering is very 80s punk - I feel like this should be louder than it is, but it has that very familiar SST sound that I know from Minutemen, Bad Brains, Meat Puppets, etc. This is another album that I wish I'd had access to in my teen years. I was listening to lots of thrash metal alongside grunge, and the messiness of this Dinosaur Jr. album would have been a nice foil to the polish of post-Bleach Nirvana. Or maybe it would have been too much? Certainly not by the time I had discovered the Toadies and Campfire Girls and Sugar. There is enough hidden in these tracks to require multiple listens to really get this album. The link to Treepeople and Built to Spill is very clear - I was trying to put my finger on why the sound of this album was so familiar - lots of exposure to thier sound here in Boise where BTS and Doug Martsch are revered. Excellent album - I'm looking forward to peeling back the layers of this sound during future listens. 4 stars.

Not the Dinosaur Jr album I would have picked but it is a good example of their songwriting chops and J Mascis' guitar virtuosity. I'm reminded by revisiting this album just how much melody is woven in to these songs, even if its partially obscured by a layer of fuzz and distortion. Ragged and raw production and some of the most unique vocals in rock. In a Jar is one of my favourite songs.

How did I go through life without ever listening to this album? A fantastic piece of noise rock, though I do still slightly prefer some other records in the genre. I will certainly expand on the band's discography. I hope their other releases are at least slightly close in quality, but this is a high bar to clear. Favourite track: Sludgefeast

Ce serait à peu près acceptable si le mec savait chantait

Sometimes you just need some noise to clear your head.

4/5. One of the essential early indie-rock albums. You can trace most of the indie/slacker bands of the 90’s back to this album to some extent. And outside of influence the songs are just rock solid all throughout. The guitar riffs are all simple yet infectiously fun and the vocals have a charming laziness to them. Ton of bangers to be found here whether that be “SludgeFeast” or “In a Jar” or even the bonus track cover of the Cures “Just Like Heaven.”

Cool ig idk

Dinosaur Jr are so cool, what a sound man so fuzzy and warm and loud and he whines a lot 5.0/5.0 Best Song: that cover of Just Like Heaven is fucking mental

World class, what an album. What a band

I dunno man I mean I guess you do need to listen to it to understand the era, but I’d rather not again.

I really like the sound of Dinosaur Jr. Despite not knowing hearing this album before, I really liked the entire album so much.

Hell yeah, one of the best 80's Rock albums. The first few songs here are some of the best Alternative Rock songs ever made, and the album generally stays strong after that. It's noisy, but there is a melody here to the madness. My favorite Dinosaur Jr album, even though it's the most popular one as well.

This album suffers from a common trope in the "first of its genre" category. That being that it's very clear how massively influential this is, that cannot be understated. But despite that, being so early on in the indie rock timeline, it was quickly overtaken by the artists that it influenced. Indie rock is a genre with iconic bands like The Strokes, Radiohead, Pixies, I could go on. None of them would exist without Dinosaur Jr, that's for sure. But this album has aged a lot, not necessarily aged badly, more just that it served the purpose of laying the groundworks allowing other bands to achieve bigger and better things. I'm glad I've heard it, it's still a perfectly good indie rock album. I just think it's very dated given how far the genre has come since then.

I really loved listening to this, western ma! Now I know why everyone around here wears their merch

You can definitely hear the influence on Nirvana here in some places, and on other grunge acts. It's very much grunge-prototype. There are some great tracks here, but not sure I fully connected with it as much as a lot of grunge stuff, and I'm a grunge lover. Perhaps it needs more listens. 3/5 for now.

A couple days ago, I was given Silver Jews' "Bright Fight" on here and one of the key takeaways I had from that record was how hard it was to listen to Berman's drab vocals. Conversely J. Mascis, while also having this lazy slurring voice, sounds amazing against this blistering wall of noise. This works better than it should

Sounds awful still love it

I enjoyed this a lot more than Bug. However, half way through listening to it driving to work I felt a worrying gurgle in my stomach, and spent the rest of my commute worrying about whether I'd make it to the office before I shat in my pants. I'm not saying Dinosaur Jr made me nearly shit myself, but it definitely took away from the listening experience.

Absolutely cracking album until a very dull final track which kills the mood. Love the loud guitars throughout the rest of the album.

★★½

Otra banda fundamental, al nivel de Pixies y Sonic Youth. Distorsión y furia desde Boston, con J mascis y un Low Barlow aun a bordo (luego volvería en la segunda y pletórica etapa que sigue vigente). No es un disco de fácil escucha, no da tregua. Me gustan más los de los Pixies (cualquiera de su primera etapa) o los de Sonic Youth, pero claro oyes Just like heaven y te dejas llevar.

How can you possibly create a maelstrom of noise with something so elegantly named Jazzmaster? From the opening seconds, you’re sucked into this grinding, well-oiled machine that leaks feedback and pounding blasts. And oh, what fun that is!

Peak

Blown away that this is from 1987. Kind of a pre grunge post rock sound. Amazingly original sound.

Really awesome, good thick fuzzy grungy music. Felt like vocals were holding back just a little and I was begging for them to really perform - would otherwise be 5* from me. I am about to be all over these guys.

Mediocre at best. Wrote this one from a computer.

Groundbreaking, sure, but not necessarily my cup of alt rock.

it's a lot heavier than their 90s stuff, which i think i prefer, but the album title is my perfect amount of emo

Me fue muy dificil escuchar este album, no hay chance que lo vuelva a escuchar

La verdad que no, el otro disco de esta banda me había parecido un meh, pero este ni eso, no lo pude terminar.

I can hear their influence on 90s grunge. I liked it.

Ended up quite enjoying the grungy sound

Solid and enjoyable. After the dross and significantly average stuff we have had, this has been refreshing.

Good.

Wat een plaat voor in den beginnen van de dag… Dit was echt intens gisteren om 6:30… De eerste paar liederen waren echt bagger… dat kan natuurlijk ook aan de ochtend komen… Nu moet ik wel toegeven dat er ook wel oke nummers tussen zaten en dat het wel mee viel met het garbage aan muzikale klanken die tegelijk als een lawine mij overdonderden. Maar ik was dan wel direct wakker..

Ik had toch liever gewacht tot na mijn dood om dit album te luisteren.

Herinnering waarom je deze vreselijke challenge doet. Hele fijne verrassing en een van de leukere ontdekkingen tot nu toe. Best een poppy plaat als je door alle fuzzy noise heen luistert. Ik las dat de solo's worden vergeleken met Neil Young en Crazy Horse en dat hoor ik ook wel. De gitaarsolo's zijn buitengewoon en anders dan je gewend bent bij dit type muziek. Verwrongen, langgerekte solo's die dus dichter bij Neil Young met Crazy Horse liggen dan bij punk. Bassist geeft hier ook het perfecte tegenwicht. Ik hou ervan als het op het randje van mooi en lelijk zit en af en toe er overheen gaat. Je begint wel een patroon in de formule te herkennen en soms is het een beetje sloppy, maar voor mij is het nog zo nieuw dat het niet stoort.

Eén ster.

Perfect album to move boxes in the rain to prepare for a home sale. Copious Oktoberfest beer nurtured sore muscles. That J Mascis guitar driven psychosis is pure beauty. Is it punk? Is it grunge? Is it experimental? Who knows and who cares, cause it just sounds delightful.

Probably my best experience with this album but still leaves a little something to be desired

Not terrible, this genre just doesn’t do much for me. Cool to see the influence on grunge and other genres

not bad for #666

Actually pretty nice album, I can't remember why I didn't like their other one as much Will I listen to again: 80%

None of the songs particularly jumped out to me but I liked it a lot as an album. You can hear their influence all over the place.

The Just Like Heaven cover at the end was a nice touch

I wish I had been cool enough to have heard this in 1987, but alas I was listening to Bryan Adams and Huey Lewis cassettes. I had no idea music like this existed. Fortunately I figured it out in the mid 1990s, and this band and this album were in frequent rotation. My appreciation for J’s guitar wizardry has only grown.

Didn't really find a lot to click with.

Det här albumet är ungefär i samma stil som the pixies men jag tycker att det är lite tråkigare. Som jag förstår det är det väldigt inflytelserikt vilket jag kan förstå, men personligen njöt jag inte alltför mycket av albumet. Jag ger det en 6/10.

Älskar detta album, men jag har tyvärr inte varit i särskilt musiklyssnande mood senaste dagarna (därför denna recension är så sen…) Jag älskar blandningen stökiga gitarrer och sångarens röst. Det kittlar min hjärna på exakt rätt sätt. Jag hade kunnat lyssna sönder detta album om det inte var så att jag hade ett till album att lyssna på. Jag ger detta album, utan starka motiveringar en 8.5/10

Really fun listen … the guitars went super hard. Didn’t matter that the singing was pretty weak. 4

I've been familiar with Dinosaur Jr. (I owned both Where You Been and Without a Sound on CD, but have lost them to time), but I had never delved into their catalogue enough to realize they'd put an album out in 1987. Having heard this one now and placing it on a timeline amongst it's "peers," I feel like they were a much more influential band than I had previously given credit, rather than the "sound like several other bands" impression that I'd previously held. While I found it less polished than those later albums, therein lies a bit of its charm and impressiveness, deploying wall of sound and distortion effects without thoroughly drowning the track beneath (looking at you, Sonic Youth). It's a very solid listen, and one that I gladly replayed immediately to pick out the best parts of. Earns a solid 4/5 for encouraging me to revisit these old friends and catch up on where they are now.

207. You're Living All Over Me - Dinosaur Jr. (1987) 9.17.26 Variety: 3 Adequacy: 5 Listenability: 5 Uniqueness: 5 Emotionality: 4 = 4.4 rounded down to a 4 "Not a show, feel so down/ And I struggle right inside out/ Reach the wall, and spiral down" I know that I first became familiar with Dinosaur Jr. via the music video for "Feel the Pain". I thought these guys seemed a lot goofier, more laid back, and unembarrassedly melodic than a lot of the grunge bands I'd been hearing, and as much as I liked them, I filed them away as, at the time, there were not really any outlets for experiencing a band's catalogue aside from spending a bunch of money on CDs. And I didn't know anyone who owned any of their stuff, so borrowing that album was out of the question. Later on when the 90s were mostly in the rearview, I began to read more music writing and kept seeing references to the band and how influential they were. Then maybe in the early 2000s I was finally able to more easily find their stuff. I won't mention the methods, but I'm sure people are familiar. Pretty sure I started with Without a Sound and worked my way backwards (I would have also heard "Freak Scene" from Bug around this time from the Left of the Dial compilation that I just mentioned in the last review). While Without a Sound was good stuff, it did not move the needle for me in being impressed. It sounded perfectly of its era. Well played, crunchy, fuzzy distorted guitars over a shambolic and lazily delivered, but melodic pop skeleton. Standard stuff for 90s indie rock. When I finally got back to You're Living All Over Me I was finally a bit astounded at how out of time it sounded. When I was in middle school the grunge and modern indie sound seemingly came out of NOWHERE. All the bands that had influenced the sound were completely unavailable to me ( I had not yet discovered 120 minutes on MTV and did not have any cool, older siblings) and it seemed formed out of nothing, delivered from on high to blow our little minds. I think this is partly why something like Smells like Teen Spirit so totally upset the culture. I think if you were older, and existed on the coasts or within those scenes you were already swimming around in the bubbling stew from which this stuff came out of and it probably felt more like a natural evolution of sound for you. R.E.M. was already HUGE by the time I heard them and I had to go back way later to hear where they started from. Husker Du and the Meat Puppets ( both of which gave me similarly crazy out of time vibes - especially Meat Puppets II) were not even words I was familiar with until the late 90s. But having absorbed so much of this stuff by now, that musical evolution makes a lot more sense to me and doesn't feel as weird. It's still a little weird though. 1987 for me is the Bangles' "Walk Like an Egyptian", Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance with Somebody, Whitesnale's "Here I Go Again", Bon Jobi's "Livin' on a Prayer", and Bruce Hornsby's "The Way It Is". It was the year the G.I. Joe and Three Men and Baby movies came out, and big hair and Camaros were still very cool. That there were these dudes who looked and sounded like they stepped through the time tunnel from 1994 to wow us with their fuzz pedals and slacker look is not a concept I could have conceived. Anyways, I'm sure to give this a mid to high 4. I know I like Bug better, but this one is still pretty great. Having just referenced them in the review of Sonic Youth's Dirty from a couple of entries ago, I'm pretty primed to here more of that sort of thing. I'm glad that we at least are getting to the two albums from the band in chronological order, which makes writing about them a tad easier. THE TRACKS "Little Fury Things" - Distorted, noisey production all around, super melodic choruses, and some awesomely crunchy fizzed out guitar work. All trademarks of the band, and stuff we'll be seeing throughout. This one has a bit of a melancholic sound to it, and remains catchy as hell. The staticky, hissing ending is the dirty, rusty bit of barbed wire that disguises the sugary sweet pop at the center. I mentioned how as much as this band's textures and vibe influenced the grunge sound, I think, sound-wise, they were maybe even more influential on the indie rock bands who weaved in and out of and all around the big grunge acts, and who survived onward when grunge imploded. There's going to be just as much power and jangle pop influence on here as there is any hard rock or metal. And I'd argue that even though you can hear it still, most of the metallic sheen the band has exists mainly in the high end, as the doomier bass bits have been filtered out. Unheavy Metal maybe? "Kracked" - Case in point - listening to this I can definitely hear the Deep Purple influence, especially in the guitar part that comes in around :44. The speed and the guitar heroics on display clearly show a love of that 70s harder sound, but exists all in the upper registers. Even Barlow's bass is far more loose and punky than it is massive. Mascis's instincts his guitar guitar solos trend towards the facemelting varety, but they are never overly showy and are in complete service of to the song. This is awesome. "SludgeFeast" - The title of this one is pretty on the nose, being maybe the most Sabbath-influenced thing on the album, with more than a little Husker Du thrown in as well. The first truly headbanging track. When Mascis comes in with his drawling Neal Youngish delivery the vibe comes down a bit. We get a bit of the loud/quiet/loud formula the Pixies and Nirvana would turn into templates that too many slavishly followed, and some more noisey textures before Mascis goes full-Iommi near the end. "The Lung" - This one follows the more straight arrow, R.E.M.-ish bouncy college rock template, and is slightly more generic for it. It feels much more like a jam until around 1:22 when the sound fills out completely and everything comes into a sharper focus. The Husker Du comparison still stands here, but there's some of the melodic punky vibes of the Buzzcocks on here as well. "Raisans" - Just as driving, but much more low key and in the pocket for me. There's a sort of ragged power pop sound to this one that's crunchy and melodic and which reminds me a bit of the Replacements. And the warbly, vowel stretching Neil Young delivery is in full force. I think with the benefit of hindsight Mascis is wearing his influences on his sleeve here, but the synthesis of all this is a pretty unique sound. "Tarpit" - An even softer open, this time with some more Buzzcocky scratchy guitar welded onto a bigger bass sound. The vocals get more reverb, and the delivery is almost comedically stretched out, drawling, and emotionally resonant. Like he wants to savor every syllable that escapes his mouth. Which makes it pretty hilarious when hear the dude in an interview and realize that he sounds more like Milton from Office Space, and speaks in a shy, deadpan, mumble. The noise elements at the end here make it sound like the track was recorded in an industrial wind tunnel that was accidentally switched on. Or maybe the band were all burned up in the wake of a jet engine. "In a Jar" - This one is much closer to the sound I would have been familiar with on Without a Sound. It's bouncier, and poppier, it messier and with a nice groove. There's some overlap here with some Miracle Legion stuff in the casual, almost tossed off delivery, but where that band goes soft and gentle, Dinosaur Jr. decide to go prickly and punchy. I could have heard this in 1995 or so and not batted an eye. "Lose" - Mascis dips back into his Iommi mode a bit here, but there's just as much Husker Du and more than a little of the band's hardcore origin peaking through the curtains as well. The Meat Puppet influence I think can be felt here as well with the cracked vocals, which I think Lou Barlow provided. "Poledo" - Awesome. We close with a downbeat ukulele number. You don't see that too often. Barlow provides the vocals here as well, and it's got what is easily the most lo-fi sound on the album, feeling very much like a demo that got expanded upon with some experimental, feedback heavy, White Album-inspired studio trickery. No idea if Trent Reznor was a fan of Dinosaur Jr. or not, but the last third of this track in particular is very Downward Spiral-coded with it's eerie, distorted analog ambience, and the HIGHLIGHTS - "Little Fury Things" - "Kracked" - "SludgeFeast" - "The Lung" - "Raisans" - "Tarpit" - "In a Jar" - "Lose" - "Poledo" MIDLIGHTS - LOWLIGHTS - FINAL THOUGHTS This was a lot of fun. As much as I really dug it, and found very little to complain about ( rare all highlights!) I know that I still like Bug a lot more than this, and feel like I have to grade on a curve a bit here. It's of a very high, sustained quality throughout, but I would argue that it never swings hard over into that rare territory where I've got multiple songs ( or EVERY. SINGLE. SONG. - Looking at you Nevermind) stuck in my head on a loop. Yeah, I know it's a high bar, and maybe an unfair comparison, but the band did go on to make songs like that, and the next one has at least one all-timer on it, which we'll get to when we get to it. And as solid as every track on here is, the massive influence on this one had on the next 5-10 years of music history far outweigh the music itself. This album ( and to a certain extent the band itself) is the equivalent of Steve Nash, the NBA hall of famer known for his low-key, quietly elite and unshowy playing and who is considered by some to be the epitome of a team player. The band is enormously talented, and is one of the major artistic examples of how rising tides lift all boats. Just try and imagine the sound of the 90s without these guys. Their (mostly) invisible hand can be felt in soooooo many places, but they never got the massive payoffs that some of the bands who followed them did. I'm sure both J. Mascis and Lou Barlow are both doing fine though. They've both continued to make tons more albums, and have remained mainstays of the indie scene for going on 40 years or so, and still put out well reviewed material. I've listened to some recent Dinosaur Jr. stuff and while it does not sound like they've evolved much, they have not yet gone extinct, and the quality levels have been maintained where so many other bands from the era have disappeared off the face of the earth, become sad parodies of themselves, or just wasted away into touring legacy band obscurity. Just know that if you reach into the hat and pull out any random album, you're bound to have a good time. Possible turn-Offs might include: - drawling, lazy disaffected sounding vocals - lots and lots of fuzzed out distorted guitars - lots and lots of noodling from said guitars - melodic lines that just sort of pop up out of nowhere and disappear just as fast, leaving you with the feeling that the band is occasionally hitting paydirt by accident before wandering off into the discordant cul de sac from which they emerged You Might enjoy this if you: - love crunchy, fuzzy, melodic guitar licks - are a fan of early to mid 90s indie and grunge - have high tolerance for noise - ever wondered where a lot of your favorite 90s bands got the textures that dominated their sound ( as well as their fashion sense) - don't mind loose structures - ever wondered what a combination of influences from Black Sabbath, the Buzzcocks, and Neil Young might sound like PLAYLIST ALTERATIONS - Nope. FURTHER LISTENING Precursors: - Machine Head by Deep Purple - The Stooges by The Stooges - Sabotage by Black Sabbath - Zuma Neil Young and Crazy Horse - Over The Edge by Wipers - Singles Going Steady by Buzzcocks - Murmur by R.E.M. - Zen Arcade by Husker Du - Meat Puppets II by Meat Puppets Contemporaries: - Psychocandy by The Jesus and Mary Chain - Daydream Nation by Sonic Youth - Surfer Rosa by Pixies - The Lemonheads by The Lemonheads - Bakesale by Sebadoh - Tim by the Replacements Descendants: - Buzz Factory by Screaming Trees - Loveless by My Bloody Valentine - Bleach by Nirvana - High/Low by Nadasurf - Ultimate Alternative Wavers by Built to Spill - Buffalo Tom by Buffalo Tom - No Pocky for Kitty by Superchunk - Icky Mettle by Archers of Loaf - Smoke Ring for My Halo by Kurt Vile - Castle Talk by Screaming Females

If an album could sound like its held together by duck tape and a mortar soaked in tobacco spit I think it might be this album. This thing felt like a bunch of parts leaning on each other and not falling down because of gumption. I enjoyed it, after a fashion, but man it was not easy to love. I can see the influence on the alternative rock that would be coming out in just a handful of years following this though and maybe I'm appreciating it through the lens of the stuff I did love and grew up with. Dinosaur Jr. is another act I've heard of but never really actively listened to. We just had Sonic Youth a few days ago and they were more to my liking. You can see how they fell into the standard alt rock. I wonder if Dinosaur Jr. ever did. The riffs and hooks were worth following, but it was too reliant on the feedback for effect. Again, at least for my tastes. Its a 3/5 that I appreciate for what followed in its wake.

Heard it before but I cannot tell you that it made an impression because I keep forgetting what this band even sounds like. Heard about them a lot when I was deep in my 90s alternative phase but I just never found them interesting 2/5

I don't think I'm much of a noise-rock person, and this is firmly not my favourite rock vocal phenotype, and this band has some of the ugliest heebie-jeebie-giving album art ever made, but I enjoyed this a lot despite all that. You have to get through the initial sting of abrasiveness to start having fun and enjoying the nice melodic elements, like sour candy. It sounds years ahead of its time. Plus their raggedy cover of Just Like Heaven is quite sweet and ridiculous.

Not sure if I'm ever in the mood for noisy distorted guitars played badly with over-use of feedback and a terrible voice accompaniment. There is also a distinct absence of keyboards to lighten the load. Sounded like someone tried to pull the plug in the middle of Raisans and then again in Poledo. Might have been better if they hadn't plugged in at all. What a disaster!

The dream team of J Mascis and Lou Barlow (when they still got on with each other) is messy noisy and sometimes hard to listen to but also pure beautiful early indie slacker rock (actually heavily influenced by Black Sabbath, Rolling Stones and their ilk) I hope everyone listened to the Just Like Heaven cover?? AMAZING!! When people ask 'what era do you wish you could travel back in time to... Renaissance Italy, ancient Rome, the Roaring Twenties in Paris or Berlin.. nope for me it would be the late 80s lo fi indie rock era in America. Anyone wanting something more melodic should check out Barlow’s side project Sebadoh. The more accessible album Bug is on the list as well so something to look forward to!

Love Dinosaur Jr, love love love J Mascis, buuuuut not mad about the production on this record and would be .5 to 1 of a star more enamoured if they could have done a better job of capturing any sort of bass tones. Also, its probably sacrilege but I like the band a lot more once Lou Barlow has gone off to be in Sebadoh. Still, it’s a fun if just bit too lo-fi mess of noise and hooks.

I understand that this is supposedly super influential, that doesnt mean I like it.

This was pretty decent. I wanted to like it more than I did, but still.

This is pretty much lo-fi indie rock perfection. It's hard to explain what exactly makes these songs work so well, and I can well see how to outsiders, this would sound somewhat 'generic'. The magic, of course, lies in the fantastic riffs and songwriting, paired with the emotional yet aloof singing which has become the blueprint for all indie singers who may not be the pinnacle of vocal virtuosity. You can hear how this is unequivocally a fully authentic moment in time that was captured, rather than the band trying to imitate a certain intended 'low-fidelity' sound. Still, I do wish the album was just a bit more adventurous, as everything between the bookending tracks does have a remarkably similar sound; that's the only thing *just* holding this back from 5 stars for me.

I’ve found Dinosaur Jr to be a little too “noise rock” for me in the past but this one was more enjoyable than expected. I still like these guys more as a greatest hits band. “Just like Heaven” was the clear highlight in my opinion.

4.5 I just had a conversation 2 days ago about how cool lou barlow is. Album is a burner. Top 5 hangover for me was after a Dino Jr show at starlite room. I was posted up at my spot with and between the 27 glass bottles of pil and not bringing ear plugs ( not that im an ear plug guy anyway) something really messed my equilibrium for a few days. Im laughing now, 18 years later, on how fucking loud that show was.

It’s hard to pin this down to one rock subgenre, there’s a lot going on here, but one of the thing that pops out to me is how this sound is a total precursor to grunge. And WOW this album sounds incredible. The guitar tones are so beautiful. “Slugefeast” is an all-encompassing colorful, gritty wall of guitars. There’s no way I’m not listening to a remastered version, but according to Spotify at least, it’s the original master. Though theyre from Massachusetts, “The Lung” has a bit of a Midwest flare to it. “Tarpit” wields this stretched, melancholy, hefty sense of weight. Guitars that distort to sound like tornadoes at the last minute, vocals that hang onto the backing track by a thread. A very humane mixture of emotions all spilled out and painted into one song. Right as the album started to get samey, “Poledo” came on. I was stunned. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard of a song so gritty and tender all at once. The phases this song flips through, all while managing to maintain a very specific sound, are astounding. I’m at a loss for words. For Dinasour Jr. to go from that gothic depth charge of a song into a whistful, lovey jam session on the two minutes of “Just Like Heaven”, ONLY for it to be interrupted by those screaming “NO!” chants, just then for the song to abruptly end — amazing. I think I’m gonna give this album a very high 4/5. There are ways in which it is indeed a true 5. It’s so ahead of its time, it’s a very pure expression of difficult emotions, it’s got some of the best guitar tones I’ve ever heard. It might be missing a sticky melody or two for my tastes, and the start of the second half of the record lulls a bit. But those are truly the only nitpicks I can drum up. I had a great time discovering this album and band

This is a band I should have liked back in the late 80's when I was very into the alternative/indie scene. I never found them as fun and interesting as all the bands I enjoyed, thus I never did much of a deeper dive. This album at times came close to being awesome. Unfortunately each time it did, there was then a moment that just knocked it down and made it more annoying for me. If it was going to be noise, then just be noise. If it was going to be melodic, then just be melodic. It felt like they needed to feel like they were challenging their fans, so each song had their thing to either make it more or not at all beloved. There were a few songs that pushed through that, so for me The Lung and Tarpit were the ones I enjoyed the most.

What a frickin' masterpiece this is! And it's only Dinosaur's second-best album. (To my shock, their best album, Where You Been, is NOT on the list. That slightly invalidates this whole exercise, if you ask me. But I will persist.)

I like JM and his sludgy tendencies...but he'll never be a 5.

Sludge and fuzz for days! I listened to this a lot in college and revisit one a pretty regular basis.

Love the noise but most songs could use some more structure. Poledo should go away. Just Like Heaven is great.

4/5 - J always sounds like J: the fuzz-sludge guitar, the doesn't give a shit voice. Huge influence on the decade to come and beyond. I really like almost all Dinosaur Jr., but it's not really enough for 5s for me.

Too shoegaze-y, too wall of sound-ish. Didn't do much for me. 2 out of 5

This flip flops between painfully dull (in that particularly male 90s way) and actually sonically painful. Oof ooof ouch please don't shout! Stop abusing your instruments! What did they do to you :( They ended up stopping doing their own crap music and started playing The Cure at the end. I'm not the biggest Cure person in the world, but it really made me appreciate them even more because they don't scream in the middle of their bloody songs for no fucking reason other than to fuck me off. 1 star

Jesus christ, this is bad. I forgot I already gave this a listen a week ago. I must have purged the experience from my brain.

Pretty decent, as long as the singer actually shuts up. However the whole singing is so whiny and boring the whole albums becomes a slog.

2.5 rounded down

Surprisingly high quality rock

gran album, me parece medio shoegaze viejo, lastima que el nombre de la banda no pega un carajo

So fun so fun; what have we done?

De klanken van het 1e nummer maken me weer 18 jaar oud 😄. Een geweldige plaat

Too much static and distortion for my taste. I was starting to enjoy Poledo and then there was a big blast of just sound. Also features my least favorite cover I’ve ever heard of Just Like Heaven

This was sort of a 3 star until I got to Poledo then really started to knock off a star. Then I got the bonus track “Just Like Heaven” and that sealed the deal - that version of the song was horrible!

Was mediocre at best.

A band beloved by a lot of people I respect, but I just can't get on board with those whiny vocals.

Having Daydream Nation and this in the space of one day has elevated my music status by 67%. Also, it turns out that T-Rex, Jurrassic 5 and Dinosaur Jr. are all different bands, but they are all fantastic!

Aldri hørt om før. En del her jeg kan like, men også noe som ikke faller i smak. Ville ikke forundre meg om Nirvana hentet litt inspo herfra. Merkelig brå avlsutning.

The music is great, but the vocals can't hold up to the fuzz.

One of the bands that influenced the bands I listened to growning up, and I regret not listening to them at the time. This album is so good.

Ok maybe I finally get Dinosaur Jr this was great!

Dinosaur JR manage to make pop music and noise seem as if they were natural to each other, as if the other needed the other to survive. J Mascis (Dinosaur JR's frontman) sincere, heart-broken-like inflection (precursor to a lot of indie rock) and introverted/shy approach to singing is probably what makes the connection between noise and pop connection meld together just a bit easier. The guitar parts are bordering on virtuosity, there tends to be these freakout sections (notably in "Sludgefeast") where the noise part really comes into play. The production is pretty lo-fi which I'm sure sparked a lot of garage bands interest in them with a do-it-yourself message being delivered. I wish the bass guitar was a lot more present in the mix I think overall it would've sounded even better, but it's still really good sounding even if it's lo-fi. I would recommend this album a lot, it's just so good at what it's trying to do. This is also certainly a must-hear album I think everyone should listen to. Highlight Song/s: "Kracked" and "Sludgefeast"

Better than Coldplay

Bit noisey