Sonic Youth - Rather Ripped

The official line is that Rather Ripped is "a straight-up Sonic Youth field on fire, with a compact potency of rock n roll enlightenment. Rather ripped, hell yeh." Hell yeh indeed. Although we prefer 'hell yeah'. Must say, though, that Rather Ripped is rather good. Hmm, a rather British reaction to a funny American bunch, eh? Good old fashioned rock 'n' roll in part, this is the Sonics at their upbeat best and is more tuneful than a lot of their work. Which, of course, means that the majority of Youthy fans will hate it, as they don't much go for melody and all that, preferring white noise and, latterly, an O-Rourke bass line (he's missing from this effort, the band's 794th album) to, well, those things that some of us refer to as 'songs'. T'ain't bad at all though for us neutral music gobblers. If a five star rating applied, which it doesn't, Rather Ripped would garner **** and, possibly, another half a *. Hell yeh.