Aging or no, Sonic Youth still has it

Sonic Youth is something else -- for a band to still be creating and innovating on their 19th album boggles the mind, not to mention the fact that they've managed to make a worthy follow-up to 2002's Murray Street, arguably their best album of the past 10 years. Without sounding repetitive, Sonic Nurse manages to return to the moody, textured audio panorama of 1988's Daydream Nation and still stay accessible to new fans who, like myself, weren't even yet twinkles in our parents' eyes when they made their debut.\nOpening with intricate guitar work on "Pattern Recognition" and shining particularly brightly on songs like "Dripping Dream" and "Stones," Sonic Nurse is a polished, well-developed and ultimately engaging album that, thankfully, works extremely well from start to finish. Not only is it rare nowadays for a band to release something so consistent, it's even more rare for a band often lumped together with My Bloody Valentine to make an album that is consistently interesting.\nThe scratchy guitar explorations that have inspired groups like Built to Spill are all here, as are the inventive percussion and songwriting. Most bands burn out within a decade, but to see a group heading into their third with such flying colors is not only inspiring, it makes for damn good listening.