Sonic Youth: Murray Street

By RUSSELL BAILLIE

(Herald rating: * * * * )

You might think that with the title to the New York alt-rock veterans' umpteenth album being a reference to their studio's location near the rubble of the World Trade Centre, the album would sound, well, loud and terrifying.

But quite the reverse, Murray Street is strangely comforting and a model of restraint. A contemplative strongly melodic set that occasionally puts a harsh sonic edge behind the seven songs, mostly it sounds like an intricate sit-down affair for the quartet who have now been permanently joined by Chicago avant-rock figure Jim O'Rourke.

On the likes of the early Empty Page and Disconnection Notice the chord-structures sound just this side of conventional. Throughout there are gentle echoes of their Big Apple art-rock lineage - the Velvet Underground and Television especially - as well as hints of their own early years.

Their ongoing lyrical fascination with Karen Carpenter is revisited on Karen Revisited. And on that track and Rain on Tin they do remind they are still capable of working up to a disconcertingly thrilling, atonal racket that sounds quite like no other.

But it's the disarming, dreamy and tuneful lulls after those storms that makes Murray Street so memorable and right up there with Sonic Youth's finest recordings.

Label: DGC