MUSIC

GALIL

into orbit. It’s the kind of song that feels like it could destroy your speakers at any volume. —LEOR

Dinosaur Jr., sweep it Into Space Jagjaguwar dinosaurjr.bandcamp.com/album/sweep-it-intospace

Dinosaur Jr.’s second act is a feel-good gift that keeps on giving. These unwavering indie-rock lifers seem to have access to a bottomless well of arena- ready solos and riffs, brain-sticking melodies, and hurricane-force noise. In the late 1980s, the power house trio—guitarist and singer J Mascis, bassist and singer Lou Barlow, and drummer Murph—became a revolutionary force in the American rock ’n’ roll underground. Then in 1989, Dinosaur Jr. went through an acrimonious breakup with Barlow, who shi ed focus to his indie-rock project Sebadoh, and in 1997, after a couple more lineup changes, the band dissolved. But in 2005, the classic Dinosaur Jr. lineup improbably reunited and was welcomed back with open arms. The indie-rock juggernauts have since toured nonstop (well, until the pandemic hit) and released four solid if not exactly overwhelming studio albums. I Bet on Sky (2012) and Give a Glimpse of What Yer Not (2016) feature all the band’s hallmarks: Mascis adds his slacker croaks and whines to sludge-bathed, Neil Younginspired ear destroyers, and Barlow writes a couple ace heart-on-sleeve tunes. But those records (and the group’s first two postreunion records, 2007’s Beyond and 2009’s Farm) only offer the occasional barn burner—they all have their share of filler.

Thankfully, Dinosaur Jr.’s brand-new Sweep It Into Space is all killer—it easily ranks as the best of their version 2.0 output. Perhaps inspired by the presence of Mascis’s kindred spirit Kurt Vile, who not only coproduced the album but also added vocals and guitar parts, the trio sound locked in, rocking out on breezy grunge pop that’s on par with the band’s early-90s stone-cold classics Green Mind and Where You Been . These 12 tracks seem to fly by in an instant, and their copious hooks are nearly impossible to shake even hours after listening. Sweep It Into Space was mostly recorded before the

U.S. went into lockdown last year, but the pandemic pushed its release back, giving Mascis more time to tinker and fine-tune the material in the studio. From start to finish, Sweep It Into Space gushes with crushing earworms, catchy choruses, and Mascis’s punk-driven guitar heroics. Play any track and you’ll find yourself singing or humming along, slaying on air guitar, or breaking into your most ridiculous rock face. “I Met the Stones” features a heavy metallic chug and layers of guitar work, and Barlow’s “Garden” takes the band’s dramatic quiet-loud dynamics to the next level. Vile even contributes country-fried 12-string guitar licks to the epically twangy shouldbe hit “I Ran Away.” Michael Azerrad may never write a sequel to his 2001 book Our Band Could Be Your Life, which documents the bands who shaped alternative and indie rock in the 80s and early 90s, but with Sweep It Into Space , Dinosaur Jr. prove once again that they deserve their chapter in it—and simultaneously add another one to their own triumphant story.

—BRAD COHAN

Les Filles de Illighadad, At Pioneer Works

Sahel Sounds / Pioneer Works lesfillesdeillighadad.bandcamp.com/album/ at-pioneer-works

Fatou Seidi Ghali is surely not the first person to become enamored of an older sibling’s guitar. When she was about ten, her older brother, Ahmoudou Madassane (who currently plays rhythm guitar for Mdou Moctar), brought a guitar from Libya back to their home in Illighadad, Niger. Since Tuareg girls aren’t encouraged to pick up the instrument, she had to dodge disapproving parental eyes to give it a try, but she proved to be a natural. Chris Kirkley of the Sahel Sounds label sought her out in 2014 a er seeing a video of her playing on YouTube. He subsequently released Les Filles de Illighadad , which consists of stunning open-air recordings that showcase two different sides of Tuareg music. (Tuaregs apply the word “Tamasheq” to themselves and their language, but it’s not as widely known in the West.)

The album opens with Ghali and singer Alamnou Akrouni playing lilting, hypnotic songs; then on the flip, they’re joined by friends for a rowdy side-length performance of tende, a local style of communal chanting and drumming.

By 2019, when Les Filles de Illighadad made their first tour of the U.S., they had evolved from an informal, communal endeavor to a road- tested, professional quartet. On At Pioneer Works, recorded in Brooklyn during that tour, Ghali and Akrouni are joined by Amaria Hamadalher, who also produced the session, on percussion and electric guitar, and another of Ghali’s brothers, Abdoulaye Madassane, on rhythm guitar. The group’s Tuareg contemporaries—notably Mdou Moctar and Bombino—are prone to flashy guitar heroics, but Les Filles’ tart picking functions as the foundation of a rhythmic matrix that also includes ensemble vocals, handclaps, and loping patterns beat out on a calabash. When they want to turn up the intensity, they do so by pulling an element out of their insistent grooves. Unlike a traditional tende gathering, which happens at someone’s home with no division between partiers and perform- ers, this performance occurred in front of an audience at a Brooklyn cultural center—but the album’s six tracks are up to the task of getting a bunch of non-desert dwellers up and dancing. —BILL

Monobody, Comma Sooper monobody.bandcamp.com/album/comma

MEYER

Instrumental five-piece Monobody have the tenacity and vision to add to Chicago’s storied postrock legacy, and they proved it with 2018’s Raytracing , which borrowed its frenzied energy from punk and metal. On their new third album, Comma (out on Sooper, the label co-owned by Monobody drummer Nnamdi Ogbonnaya), the group maintain the seatof-the-pants spirit of their previous records while so ening their touch and redirecting their energies toward a sound more reminiscent of jam-band music and jazz. Monobody tether frothy keyboards and ostentatious guitar solos to clean, breakneck acro-