Musician review of WAS

[SG]

Found an old review of Without A Sound from Musician magazine-Sept 94.
"Dinosaur Jr`s evolution into the J Mascis show is now pretty much complete,with the drawling troubadour doing all the singing and playing on this new one,assisted by Mike Johnson on bass.Mascis has always been the group`s auteur,but now he is the group.And his vignettes of laconic disaffection-encased in guitar buzz and punctuated by the occasional hyper solo-don`t come across,he has no one to blame.Of course,he could always get rid of the bass player…
Fortunately Mascis is in fine form(as he has been since 91`s Green Mind)though the term may be misleading when applied to an album whose zippiest-"zippy"as in essentially upbeat guitar riff structure cut is called "Feel The Pain".Say rather that his near death croak is as effective as ever.Mascis sings as though it`s a strain to say anything,and his lyrics tend to be pithy and spare;propped up by layered,aggresive guitar he just manages to get through each song,while on the acoustic change ups he lapses into a somnambulistic but still raw whisper.It would be a tedious pose if it was`nt leavened by self awareness("Yeah it`s not very tasteful/yeah it`s not very wise/well,it`s the best I came up with/So it`s not much a surprise"-Yeah Right)and if it was`nt so intentionally transparent:Mascis comes across as someone who wants to appear not to care too much,while at the same time worrying that his bogus attachment may become genuine.He tips his hand on cuts like the too nonchalant "I Don`t Think So",a bitter sweet pop song in grungy disguise,and "Outta Hand",one of several songs about not connecting but the most specific about his own facade contemplating someone else`s."-Richard C Walls.

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