Dinosaur Jr. have been around the block and their body of work is the stuff of legend since the mid-80s and Give a Glimpse of What Yer Not is a most excellent new addition to their canon.  There is everything you would want here.  Mascis’s alt-country voice ruffles through the pop-metal-rock-grunge noise of his brilliant guitar as strong as at any point in their long career and his original bassist, Barlow, hangs it all around a steady foundation and all is good.

There have been louder more experimental metal excursions in their past, and as with the opening ‘Goin Down’ and the almost epic ‘I Walk for Miles’, just when Mascis’ guitar borders on parody, it slips in the proper doses of grungy feedback and creative progressions to keep you happy.

Dinosaur Jr. is a guitar band first and foremost, and what separates Mascis from most is his fearlessness to take his guitar in any direction he so chooses.  Which is why his songs more than occasionally border on pop-metal before exploding into noisy ear-candy that conjures up 70s metal as well as rocking Americana.

The real surprise here is the most enduring track might well be the Barlow-penned ‘Love is…’.  Barlow doesn’t get much air time on a DJ album and he only gets two shots on this one but what a great song.

While ‘Love is…’ jolts you as an electric-folk gem, it frankly adds a nice counter-balance to Mascis’s predictability.  As does the closing Barlow song, ‘Left/Right’.

Give a Glimpse of What Yer Not shouldn’t disappoint the legion of fans they’ve accumulated or fail to keep influencing the legions of bands as well (DJ is the recorded band of choice that plays through the speakers of bands here in the Midwest before concerts from Jay Farrar to Cheap Trick…).  A solid effort.