Dinosaur Jr.’s Sweep It Into Space, originally slated for release in 2020, has found a newly symbolic resonance as a result of its pandemic-induced delay. The band’s 12th studio album is now arriving exactly 30 years after the release of two milestones in the broader world of Dinosaur Jr.: Green Mind, the group’s first album following the acrimonious departure of bassist and founding member Lou Barlow, and III, the most popular album by Barlow’s band Sebadoh. Barlow spent parts of III sniping at J Mascis for being a control freak, while Green Mind—which presented a somewhat cleaner, less abrasive Dinosaur Jr. sound—lent credence to those claims, with Mascis playing nearly all the instruments himself, in the process sidelining hammer-handed drummer Patrick Murphy almost completely.
Mascis, Barlow, and Murph have now been back together for more than twice as long as their original run, consistently churning out music that rarely fails to sound like anything less than classic Dinosaur Jr., with all the fuzzed-out guitar riffs and slacker vibes that implies. The sprightly, exuberant Sweep It Into Space doesn’t just provide an especially good opportunity to look back on how far these three guys from Amherst have come since the early ’90s, it also finds them making their most life-affirming music to date, exploring new tones and textures without betraying their monolithic, thundering signature sound.
The latest in a long line of classic Dinosaur Jr. album openers, “I Ain’t” certainly sounds as though Mascis is in a happily reflective mood. Not unlike the catchy, pounding guitar riffs that he continues to effortlessly reel off with aplomb, Mascis’s lyrics, all economical phrasing and clipped syntax, are deceptively simple. There’s a world of feeling to be found in his plain proclamations that “I ain’t good alone…I won’t break it/No mistake/I just can’t go it alone.” When he’s in a more serious or pensive mood, his notoriously laconic, creaking whine can come across as downright dreary. But set to the band’s cheery, boisterous backing track, it sounds like he’s cracking a big, wry smile and letting us all in on the joke.
While there are a good number of heavier moments that betray the band’s ever-present early-’70s classic-rock influences—like the winkingly titled “I Met the Stones”—Sweep It Into Space’s highlights rank among the band’s most playful and melodic songs. Lead single “I Ran Away,” featuring Kurt Vile on 12-string guitar, finds Dinosaur Jr. at their most jangly, while the jocund keyboard-driven dub rhythms of “Take It Back” are an unexpected reprieve from the album’s guitar crunch. The harder-rocking “Hide Another Round” bursts with enough chummy energy that it could soundtrack a beer commercial—so long as the beer was a microbrewed New England IPA. Even Mascis’s guitar solos are more melodic than usual, though still slathered with more than enough piercing fuzz to satisfy longtime fans.
If there’s one lost opportunity in the Dinosaur Jr. post-reunion era, it’s that Barlow hasn’t become a more equal songwriting partner. Decades of Sebadoh albums have more than proven that he can deliver the goods, while whatever remains of Mascis’s domineering qualities have obviously mellowed. And yet, Barlow seems to have graciously embraced serving as Mascis’s foil again, and his token songwriting contributions to each album consistently supply some diversity while fitting seamlessly within whatever style Mascis has decided to explore. With the tender, wistful “Garden,” Barlow supplies the album’s tightest pop song, and with the angsty “You Wonder,” he broadens the album’s emotional range. Even over a decade after a reunion that once seemed impossible, there’s still a lot of joy to be found in hearing these two musicians play each other’s songs with thoughtfulness and vigor once again.
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