Dinosaur Jr - Farm

As the old saying goes… if it aint broke, don’t fix it. So it comes as no surprise then that Farm, Dinosaur Jr’s ninth studio album and fifth recorded by the original line up of J Mascis, Lou Barlow, and Murph brings nothing new to the table within their world of fuzzy melodious hazy jams.

But who needs new when everything works just fine?

Farm delivers exactly what you’d expect from a new Dinosaur Jr. LP, a collection of tight experimentation wrapped up in wonderfully subtle guitar melodies and punchy garage-band production. And to that end the opening salvo of ‘Pieces’ and ‘I Want You To Know’, together with Friends are as good as anything the band has laid on tape in the past. Hooky, straightforward and full of the usual confidence, the trio show a band that knows they are pretty damn good at what they do.

Farm isn’t entirely as ‘safe’ as the band’s resurrection album, 2007’s Beyond either -  ‘Plans’ and ‘For The People’, both clocking in at just under and over 7mins respectively, are wonderful, well paced songs that give this album some time to sit down and take a deep breath. And the breath gets ever deeper with the epic ‘I Don’t Wanna Go There’. A nine-minute journey worthy of the album’s Lord Of The Rings inspired artwork, it allows the band to take the reigns off and run wild. Which is really quite bitter-sweet as the penultimate track hints at a sound that could be something far more poignant and interesting than anything the aging trio have done before if they were brave enough to continue on said journey for an entire album.

But this is Dinosaur Jr. and despite flashes of greatness, they’re very much happy to stick with what they know. You just wish they’d give us a little bit more of that ‘moreness’ they hint at from time to time but in an age when everyone’s going “disco”, Dinosaur Jr. are content to keep the guitars cranked up, the drums tight and the jams coming and for that Ragged Words salute them.