“As legitimate children of the ’60s, they de-tuned and distorted the aggressive toms and snaky guitars of surf and garage rock, peeling back their layers to expose something rusted and collapsing or bloody and beating underneath, depending on the song. Even the name Sonic Youth evokes the kind of lurking emotional terrorism with which the young threaten the old. Oh shit, the kids have guitars and they’ve seen through everything. Run. The rebel nature of Evol linked it more closely to hip-hop than to much of the rock of the time, which in its mainstream form consisted mostly of dudes with feathered hair whose lone skill was creating corny entendres about women’s bodies. Evol, by contrast, abutted and even paralleled the brewing aesthetic of New York hip-hop: urban, layered, complex, real, and lyrical.” (more…)