Dinosaur Jr. “There Near” Review
Written by Blake Peck
Dinosaur Jr. - There Near— out everywhere 8/28
Dinosaur Jr. lean into their usual raw magic, tight chemistry and tried-and-true formulas on their new LP, There Near.
A long while back while building my record collection, I picked up a sealed 1985 self-titled Dinosaur Jr. record, the rare pressing without the "Jr." The guy at the record store gave me a look of pure collector disgust while I paid. It was as if he already knew, telepathically, how quickly that shrink wrap was coming off, and exactly how loud that record would be played once I got it home. He was right. Forty-some years in, that's still the correct way to hear this band, and There Near doesn't ask for anything different.
“Several Got Away” opens things in a territory that Dinosaur Jr. knows as well as anyone alive: loud, gorgeous, unmistakably theirs. Mascis still has this trick where a verse feels almost tossed off right before the chorus opens up underneath it. 40 years in, the formula hasn't lost a thing.
“No Friends” leans into the loneliness that's always lived somewhere in this band's noise. Mascis carries it up front while Barlow and Murph trudge underneath him with real weight. The chorus lands like a release, then the guitar breaks into a freakout that turns the whole mood inside out.
“Everything At Once” has the tenderness of the Green Mind years. It drifts for a while, patient and soft, Mascis sounding almost weightless, until piano and fuzzed guitar shake the song loose again. Dinosaur Jr. have pulled this move for decades, and It still works because they know exactly when to do it.
“Take Me With You” comes out of the gate at full speed. The vocal harmonies are some of the most addictive on the record, and Murph turns in his strongest performance here, driving the whole thing forward while Mascis stacks fuzz on top of fuzz. When the solo finally breaks, the song sounds like it's been waiting all along for permission.
Lou Barlow takes the wheel on “Blowin' Up,” opening with a steady pulse that slowly widens around him. His instincts give the song a different shape without pulling it away from the record's center. The structure feels looser than the rest of the album, something closer to Barlow's own crooked pop sensibility than the band's usual muscle.
“Gone Off" might have the catchiest guitar lick on the whole record, the kind you hear once and immediately want a guitar in your hands to figure out. The performance has the looseness of a jam even if it wasn't one. The solo already sounds built for the size of room this band tends to fill on tour.
“Clam Along” settles into the pocket Dinosaur Jr. have called home for most of their career, and somehow that pocket still doesn't feel worn out. Mascis sings soft and close before the band builds toward another enormous solo, squeezing an unreasonable amount of feeling out of distortion.
Dinosaur Jr. by Jeff Fowler
“Walk Me Back” is the most nostalgic thing on the record: slow, sweet, delicate. Dinosaur Jr. have been tangled up with skate videos for decades, Alien Workshop especially, going back to Memory Screen in 1991 and running through Mind Field years later. This song taps into that same time-travel feeling, grainy footage and a guitar tone that ends up wired into you before you're old enough to know it's happening.“Read The Room” snaps back into gear fast. The groove hits immediately. The real pleasure is how locked in the three of them sound, less like separate musicians and more like one unstable machine that never loses the song. It could have shown up in the middle of their nineties run and nobody would have blinked.
“Put It Down” is full ballad mode, bluesy and heavy underneath its own tumbling movement. It keeps threatening to crack open, and when Mascis finally lets the guitar roar, that's exactly what happens. The solo isn't decoration. It's the whole point of the song. Barlow closes the record with “No One's Ready,” — it’s a fitting last word from a band that clearly isn't interested in coasting.
There Near works because Dinosaur Jr. understands their own chemistry instead of hiding behind it. It's warm and loud, funny in one breath and lonely in the next, completely at home in its own skin.
Occult Highlights: “Take Me With You”, “Gone Off”, “Walk Me Back”, “Several Got Away”
(…but we recommend you play it loud in full– The record store guy already knows you're going to, and these legends probably want it that way.)
8.0/10
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