From the opening notes of J. Mascis’ fuzzy distorted guitar on Dinosaur Jr.’s new album, Beyond, the band defies the notion that reunions are rarely this good. After a 20 year absence of the original lineup, Dinosaur Jr. has returned just as triumphantly as they dissolved, with an album that is everything they once were and ultimately what they have evolved into. Tightly wrapped melodic songs trade time with muddy and murky mixes with little separation, as the trio of J., bassist Lou Barlow and drummer Murph merge into one. There are hints of the past, such as “Crumble,” which sounds like an outcast from the Where You Been era, but the album is more aptly a perfect marriage of the sludge rock of their youth with the epic pop that Mascis mastered in the later, Barlow-less incarnations of the band. It is still clearly the J. show as his solos live and breathe all over the album, but there is also the sense of the total dissipation of the angst an power struggle that once led to the band’s extinction, such as on the Barlow-penned and fronted “Back to Your Heart.” This is a phenomenal return to form from a giant, not willing to retire its legacy to the status of progenitor: There is too much noise still to be made.
