Album Reviews

Following his first largely acoustic album “Several Shades Of Why”, J Mascis is back with “Tied To A Star”. While most of you will know him as that guy from Dinosaur Jr who likes to play as loud as possible, the songs on here sound more like what you’d expect to be written by a grown-up indie slacker.

Mascis may still sound like the little boy who just had his heart broken for the first time when he opens his mouth, the music is as mature as anything he has done so far. He will still occasionally let it rip in songs like “Trailing Off” and “Better Plan” but he scores just as well with a song like “Wide Awake”, a moving duet between Mascis and Chan Marshall where the volume hardly ever goes above a whisper.

Not everything on here is as good though… take a song like “Come Down” for example. It’s there but other than that it’s not really doing anything other than take up space. The instrumental “Drifter” also doesn’t work for me… with its Middle Eastern  motif it comes dangerlously close to something a jam band would churn out after one joint too many. Luckily the tracks worth listening to still outnumber the filler material and while “Tied To A Star” won’t be called a classic album anytime soon, every Dinosaur Jr fan is sure to find something to his or her liking on here.