The song title "Small Flowers Crack Concrete" describes this album almost perfectly: delicate off-kilter guitar embroidery decorates vast grey oceans of punkish noise - a noise which pulsates rather than roars. Of course if you're not a fan of this sort of thing you will HATE this album. "NYC Ghosts & Flowers" presents Sonic Youth 20 years into a career spent weaving together bruised yet beautiful alt-rock with krautrock noise and feedback. This 12th effort is a calmer affair than usual - everything sounds semi-improvised and the atmosphere is relentlessly "arty" yet the band somehow steers clear of overt pretensiousness. A little too much reliance on mantric repetition in the vocals can become grating, but in general "Ghosts" succeeds as dreamy/nightmarish punk psychedelia.
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