Musical Dinosaurs

As much as we first loved the music of screamy, crunchy, blissfully tormented alt-rockers Dinosaur Jr. — an act formed in Amherst in 1984 that quickly made it huge on the national grunge scene — we kind of thought, circa the turn of the millennium, that the band had comfortably receded into our brains’ nostalgia pockets, tucked somewhere alongside those old Tamagotchis, Nintendo 64s, and Chicago Bulls Starter jackets. 

Then something remarkable happened. J Mascis, Lou Barlow, and Murph — who only recorded three full albums during their initial run in the 1980s — reunited, and they’ve stayed together for the past 11 years. In 2015, they played star-studded live shows to celebrate the anniversary of their eponymous debut LP. Their latest record, Give a Glimpse of What Yer Not — recorded at Amherst’s Bisquiteen Studio —  dropped this summer.

“It’s remarkable how fresh and visceral Dinosaur Jr. still sounds,” one reviewer recently wrote in The Guardian.  It’s true. Mascis shows more creativity and discipline than ever as he plays roaring bouts of smudgy, pop-psychedelic guitar. Barlow and Murph, on bass and drums, stagger brazenly through the fences between punk, funk, prog and rock, like angry bulls put to pasture. On Give a Glimpse, Masic and Barlow share songwriting duties, to great effect. For a messy trio of misfit personalities, this is one tight act. Mascis and company are, as MASS MoCA puts it, “a shred-heavy slice of grunge-rock heaven.”

Dinosaur Jr., with Luluc: Saturday, Dec. 10 at 8 p.m. $28-$46. Hunter Center at MASS MoCA, 1040 MASS MoCA Way, North Adams. (413) 662-2111, massmoca.org. 

— Hunter Styles,  [email protected]