Pitchfork

I sold all of my Dinosaur Jr records at an indie rock flea market years ago. Actually, I sold all but two. It took me three days to decide whether or not to go through with it. The final compromise was that I would keep You're Living All Over Me and Where You Been and dump the rest. I listened to each of the discs one last time before packing them up along with my Some Velvet Sidewalk records and that two-disc Chairman of the Board Sinatra tribute album Grass Records put out forever ago.

I don't know why I held onto these two albums specifically. Yeah, they were my favorites of the bunch, but in the end, it wasn't enough. My kind heart and high school memories gave way to an empty wallet, and I eventually even sold those to a used CD store. I was Dinosaur Jr-less for four years until now. My hopes sprang when I saw I was being handed this new BBC collection to review. After so long without the simple comforts of J Mascis and friends, I was pretty eager to hear them again. Maybe I'd changed in all those years.

I hadn't. Or at least, distance hadn't made the heart grow fonder. Dinosaur Jr live sounds pretty much the same as their old albums, and that sound is pretty much the same, even after our period apart. Of course, all but two of these tracks were recorded in 1988-89 (dating up to Bug) so they should sound like the first few albums. But while these recordings catch the band in both their seminal line-ups, with Lou Barlow on bass, and at the peak of their early years, the actual performances hardly stand apart from their studio counterparts. If anything, it's easier to tell what's going on in the songs more without the super lo-fi, in-the-red, shrill feedback production to get in the way. But is that a good thing? I miss the fuzz.

The two standout moments come with the leadoff track, "In a Jar", and "Raisans", both culled from You're Living All Over Me. In these rare instances, the band really puts on a tight performance, with Mascis' guitar wailing masterfully, Barlow's creative basslines and Murph's insidious drumming proving the band's technique had advanced substantially over two years. But sadly, nothing else jumps out, because ultimately, it's all much more interesting on the original albums. If you still have those old records, just play them instead of going out of your way for this one. And if that doesn't satisfy you, I still have that two-disc Sinatra tribute.