Bad Moon Rising [LP]

Vinyl LP repressing including digital download that features the album plus four bonus tracks. Reissue of Sonic Youth's second full-length album, originally released in 1985. The album is a fascinating examination of "the junction where hippie idealism [meets] the cold hard world," says guitarist Lee Ranaldo, "where Woodstock [meets] Altamont-Death Valley, Charles Manson, Brian Wilson, musicians, murderers, heroes and villains." It's original eight-song tapestry of droning guitar feedback, distant clattering percussion, and sullen vocals, all held together with interstitial noise loops and shadowy haze, ambles through a long, dark night before the feverish "Death Valley '69," driven by runaway guitar riffs and a frantic Thurston Moore/Lydia Lunch vocal duet, pounds the capstone into place.