In hindsight, EVOL (1986) perfectly encapsulates a transitional period for Sonic Youth, which saw incredible growth as well as the arrival of no-nonsense, power drummer Steve Shelley. Prior to its release, the band tinkered with doom-laden bouts of noise haphazardly arranged as songs. The foursome was more than adept at shelling out a frenzied guitar ruckus that could satisfy fans of the avant-garde, but Confusion is Sex (1983) and Bad Moon Rising (1985) only hinted at the band’s ability to craft subversive pop albums. Following EVOL, Sonic Youth went on to release two milestones of guitar-oriented music, Sister and Daydream Nation—arguably its two strongest albums, before dabbling in the mainstream alternative scene of the early ’90s, spearheaded by friends and label mates Nirvana. So what about EVOL?
Despite clearing the way for Sister’s avant-rock explorations, it still sounds little like anything else in the Youth’s immense catalogue, let alone the music of its contemporaries. Slightly distorted guitars ooze dissonant chords that consistently veer toward a climactic finale, only to recoil to its vague, illusory outset. The album’s cover photograph of an agitated young woman belies the particular aesthetic the music set forth—alienation, uncontrollable desire/dreams, and a penchant for violence. “Marilyn Moore” begins with a distorted shriek of vocals paired with a lone, clean guitar before the amplifiers activate the noise and steadily construct a lava-like trance as Thurston Moore murmurs, “Sound asleep till night until day/Frustrated desire turns you away/Turns you insane over and over.” Dreams and desire retain thematic control not only in the vocals but also as a shadowy guide throughout the album. Repeated listens underpin the feeling of a recurring dream, slightly altered each time. Album closer “Madonna, Sean and Me” personifies the album’s murky allure by fading into a perpetual stasis of hushed, resounding feedback—as if the listener should wake up from this interminable echo caused by the ‘locked groove’ on the LP.
On opening track “Tom Violence,” Moore and guitarist Lee Ranaldo initially employ their guitars in a restrained manner and are unwilling to unleash the feedback they had been known to drench their notes in. Suddenly the noise and volume increase two-fold during the final verse, offering an emphatic finale to the album’s intro, and setting up Kim Gordon’s beautiful, chilled ballad “Shadow of a Doubt,”—concerning a woman’s love for a stranger and subsequent thoughts about killing their respective lovers; then struggling to remember if it was just a dream.
The song is a clear sign of the band’s maturity, not only as songwriters but also as architects of a succinct, flowing album statement.
Shifts in vocal volume, guitar distortion and the varied paces within each song give credence to their already unique ability. On “Secret Girls,” an evocative piano line takes the fore amid carefully engaged guitar hisses that hypnotize and establish tonal contrast. Previously, with Confusion Is Sex, Sonic Youth strung together a hodgepodge of genre-bending noise ditties that failed to stand together as a whole; on Bad Moon, the band sounded more like it was creating a movie soundtrack than a musical album. It displayed seamless transitions but felt too monotonous. With EVOL, Sonic Youth distinguished themselves as the ultimate purveyors of sound exploration within the rock genre.
People fear the unknown and dreams may not always be pleasant, but why do they grip us so much when, upon waking, we fail to grasp the whole picture? That is indeed the appeal of Sonic Youth and especially EVOL—the shroud of the incomprehensible unmasks itself subtly if one is prepared to take on new concepts of music and sound. The spaces inside EVOL are jarring and fragmented, yet utterly real—real in that you can smell the car crash described in Ranaldo’s poetic-noise piece “In the Kingdom #19”; real when Gordon whispers vulnerably, demanding that the stranger she desires, “Kiss me/Kiss me in a shadow of a doubt.” EVOL slithers into the unconscious like a drug whose effects take time to kick in; the detuned melodies and haunting riffs eventually penetrate the mind’s conscious state. Once the final whispers of feedback depart from the speakers, however, the music has left only a faded footprint, forever reeling the listener back for another strange trip.
