Indie Forever | An atomic clock is ticking in Dinosaur Jr.

Dinosaur Jr. in the bog of the present: guitarist Mascis in the front, then Murph, the atomic clock and bassist Barlow in the back. Photo: Jeff Fowler There can also be strength in just keeping going. An aesthetic of persistence: everything as usual, but more finely differentiated. Three recently released albums by once style-defining bands build on past musical greatness, sound the way we know it and still be beautiful and actually touching in their own way. Time travel music to the late eighties, the nineties and the noughties.

With “You’re Living All Over Me” in 1987, Dinosaur Jr. laid down a blueprint for indie rock that combined fragile world-weariness with guitar melodies and walls that weighed everything down, yet reached out in all directions. The voice was thin and wailing, the guitar loud but somehow not brutal. More of a sonic equivalent of the internal pressure that the singer couldn't articulate. The latter, J. Mascis, continued after two albums in different constellations and at some point alone.

But the original trio with Lou Barlow (bass) and Murph (drums) have been playing together again since 2007, and on "There Near", the sixth album since the reunion, everything sounds as usual. Mascis' fistula voice, Barlow sings on two pieces, the drums run precisely like an atomic clock and the connection between massiveness and fragility is still enchanting, the songs are more floating than before. And the guitar solos sound more and more like those of Neil Young, who towers over everything here like a good spirit.

On their best-known album “Gentleman,” released in 1993, the band Afghan Whigs fused grunge, which was omnipresent at the time, with soulful vocals. There was also a long break, radio silence from 2001 to 2011, since then the Afghan Whigs have released an album every four to five years with a stoic routine. The current one is called “Soft Control” and sounds like it. Thoroughly composed, but with plenty of space for Greg Dulli's very present voice, which moves agilely through all registers, from rough bark laments to falsetto.

Finally, with their debut “Turn On the Bright Lights” in 2002, Interpol ushered in the revival of Ian Curtis memorial voices that continues to this day. Deep, ever-present bass and everything performed with sonorous longing. After a few excursions into the gay, the new album “This Mirror Weighs a Ton” sounds like back then. The epigones could do better, and when listening to Interpol it becomes clear where The National, for example, got their ideas from.

All three albums build on the most beautiful phase, without sounding old or like financially motivated fulfillment of duty. All three bands are also examples of how you can grow old gracefully in indie rock.

The »nd.Genossenschaft« belongs to its readers and authors. They are the ones who make our journalism accessible to everyone through their contribution: We are not backed by a media company, not a large advertising customer or even a billionaire.

With your support we can continue to:

→ report independently and critically → address overlooked topics → give space to marginalized voices → counter misinformation → advance left-wing debates

With “Pay voluntarily” you can take part. You help ensure that this newspaper has a future. So that nd remains.