at the end is pinched from Clapton's "Let It Rain"). The album's working title, So What Else Is New, seems less a question than an acknowledgment of rock's perpetually inbred nature. Even the band's name speaks of classic-rock lineage.

But far from being derivative, leader J Mascis takes a familiar deck of cards and deals out a new game. While for Young guitar clamor signaled rage and desperation, for Mascis it's retreat. Before a roiling torrent of distorted guitars and oceanic drum bash, Mascis sings in a laid-back croak, like a character talking calmly to the camera in the midst of a riotous crowd scene. The turmoil on Where You Been is a relationship crippled by misunderstanding, detailed in a poignant second-person narrative that consumes virtually every song on the album.

Dinosaur Jr is Mascis's band; he plays the extended but always dramatic guitar solos, and he writes the excellent songs – such as the riff-happy "Start Choppin" and "I Ain't Sayin," the two-minute gem that closes the album. As producer, he embellishes the band's usual all-guitar palette with timpani, chimes and strings – a daring move in the sadly conformist world of alternative rock.

Like many of its peers, Dinosaur Jr is a musical cargo cult, turning the detritus of another culture into something that can be used – and maybe even worshiped. For one of the crowning glories of slacker culture, look no further. (RS 650)

MICHAEL AZERRAD