There Near: Dinosaur Jr. stay loud and sound glad about it

There Near is Dinosaur Jr. playing loud, which is not news, and sounding pleased about it, which is. Eleven tracks, about 42 minutes, out August 28 on Jagjaguwar, five years after Sweep It Into Space. It is the sixth record since Lou Barlow came back, and the least guarded of them.

The band started in Amherst, Massachusetts in 1984: three hardcore kids from Deep Wound slowing down and turning up, playing something J Mascis described as ear-bleeding country. Three albums on independent labels, Dinosaur, You're Living All Over Me and Bug, built a reputation that fed straight into the 1990s alternative rock boom. Then the split. Mascis fired Barlow, who went off and made Sebadoh; Mike Johnson took the bass for the major-label run; Murph left; the whole thing ended in 1997. The original lineup reformed in 2005 and has held since, with Beyond, Farm, I Bet on Sky, Give a Glimpse of What Yer Not and Sweep It Into Space behind it. Mascis's drawl and his feedback have not shifted in forty years, and a lot of what got called shoegaze started in his amp.

There Near was engineered by Mascis with Mark Alan Miller and Will Killingsworth, cut by Joe Nino-Hernes, with cover art by Dezso Andrea. The rollout was unhurried and slightly odd: free shows scattered around New York, a split 7" this year where Mascis and Mike Watt swapped covers, and last summer's co-headlining US run with Snail Mail. A North American tour is set for February to March 2027, with Starcrawler opening.

The sound is the sound. Distortion doing the work of a rhythm section, Murph's drumming unfussy and propulsive underneath, Mascis flat and unhurried on top. What has changed is what the noise carries. "Several Got Away" opens bright and fully formed, the tune already there rather than excavated from under the fuzz. "No Friends" sits in a minor key and stays upright because Murph will not let it sink, pushing the beat while the guitars complain around him.

"Everything At Once" is the lead single and the record's romantic center, Mascis confessional about a separation over a melody that keeps its footing. The video, directed by Guy Kozak, has a medieval knight mowing a lawn, washing a car, barbecuing and sitting on a fallen log in the woods. It is a fair summary of the mood: the drama is domestic and the armor is not helping.

"Clam Along" is the one to keep. At 4:48 it is the longest thing here and it earns the time, a nostalgic verse opening into a guitar lead of the kind Neil Young used to hand to Crazy Horse, despondent and unhurried, the words circling attachment and how hard it is to put something down.

Barlow gets two. "Blowin' Up" is his swaggering stoner jam, loose and grinning, the closest the record comes to a party. He also takes the closer, "No One's Ready," which lands as unfinished business rather than a last word, the guitars fading with something still being said.

This is for people who own Bug and have stuck with the reunion records anyway. It also suits anyone who liked the last few and found them a little tidy. Neil Young and Crazy Horse, the Jesus and Mary Chain, the Cure's "Just Like Heaven" still sitting in the set after all these years: that aisle. Play it loud in a car. Play it once quietly and the guitars hold up there too.

The reservation is warmth. The early records were made by people plumbing the depths of a bedroom; this one is made by a band who have shared a room for decades, and the ease shows where it shouldn't, at the end, where "No One's Ready" shrugs instead of lands. Everything before it is the best version of what they do: real hooks, a rhythm section that never hurries, a guitar tone unchanged since the eighties and still better than almost everyone copying it. Four out of five. Start with "Clam Along," then go back to the top.

The tracklist

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