Dinosaur Jr. – I Bet On Sky
Dinosaur Jr - I Bet On Sky
By Kenny McMurtrie
Album number three from the rejuvenated Dinosaur Jr. and thankfully they deliver what you’ll have come to expect in terms of upbeat, slacker rock and not something along the lines of J. Mascis’s disappointing solo album from last year. You get the impression the trio could churn this stuff out for years to come and you’d never mistake it for any other band’s work.
Like aural comfort food, the ten tracks on I Bet On Sky kick off in a reasonably jangly and raucous manner with ‘Don’t Pretend You Didn’t Know’ but the verve with which that is delivered doesn’t quite last out till the closing of ‘See It On Your Side’ – the album pretty much plays away to itself then gets up off its stool, collects its coat and shambles off into the night.
Between those two points of reference the content is suitably inoffensive in its foot-tapping-ness and liberally sprinkled with the high quality guitar solos Mascis is renowned for. Lou Barlow gets let loose on lead vocal duties on both ‘Rude’ and ‘Recognition’, which makes for a bit of variety. Repeated listens do bear fruit (you’ll probably find yourself singing the title refrain after hearing it half a dozen times or so), and when the threesome rock out the years slip away. Overall this could slot into anywhere in the band’s canon without disrupting the flow of other works around it.
