You're Living All Over Me

iTunes Review

All right; so the mix is a little muddy and wafer-thin at times, despite a hefty round of remastering from Merge Records. Not that you'll notice after a few minutes of dodging J Mascis' jigsaw chords — balls of feedback and fuzz that unfurl into spastic solos and manic melodies at the most inappropriate, unexpected moments. Simply put, You're Living All Over Me is the album that made Mascis one of indie rock's greatest guitar gods right alongside Thurston Moore and, well, Thurston Moore. (Appropriately enough, Sonic Youth became a major supporter of Dinosaur Jr. after hearing this album.) That's the good news. The bad news is it signaled the beginning of the end for bassist Lou Barlow, who was barely talking to Mascis by the time their next album (Bug) came out. The pair's teeth-gnashing tension can certainly be heard in the push and the pull of noise-pop freakouts like "Little Fury Things" and "Sludgefeast." It's also hard not to view "Poledo"— an uneasy, bedroom-based mess of knob twiddling and ukulele leads — as the song that sparked Sebadoh, Barlow's next band. Eh, whatever. Internal issues aside, this album's still one of the greatest relics from a time when 'college rock' actually meant something.