Cover of “Last Night On Earth” by Lee Ranaldo And The Dust
On “Between The Times And The Tides”, Lee Ranaldo referred to the heroes of his youth: Bob Dylan, pre-Wings solo McCartney, the Allman Brothers and the Grateful Dead. The Dust – Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley and guitarist Alan Licht accompanied him on the last album, and now Tim Lüntzel, who already played bass for Bright Eyes, joins them. And so “Last Night On Earth” has become the album of a collective, it is more washed out, freer and more expansive than its predecessor, which is very clear in its contours.
Only one piece stays under five minutes, the longest stretches over twelve. But that doesn’t mean that the song ideas take a backseat in favor of jams and noise experiments, on the contrary, Ranaldo embellishes his 60s West Coast melodies with acoustic guitars, harpsichord and CSN harmonies before moving on to psychedelic explorations with The Dust breaks up.
Of course, some pieces still sound like the driving tracks of the late Sonic Youth, but in the love of pop tradition and the light-footed, delicate implementation, some things here are more reminiscent of the great exploits of the casual avant-guitar rock alternative from Hoboken, Yo La Tengo.
This original review from 2013 comes from the RS archives