Sonic Youth

The Destroyed Room looks like overkill at first, arriving at the end of a year when Sonic Youth reissued out-of-print pages from its ’80s catalogue (Sonic Youth EP and, under the Material Girl-mocking nom-de-plume Ciccone Youth, The Whitey Album) and turned in a pretty-pearl new album (Rather Ripped) and a barely advertised 7-inch single (“Helen Lundeberg”). Presumably, the NYC avant-whatever quartet’s restoration project — remastering and repackaging old stuff with covers, B-sides and alternate takes glued on — will continue unabated, so why bother corralling and penning these ’90s and ’00s strays?

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Seems they’re onto something. Kim Gordon sings acoustic tweed scrap “Razor Blade,” but her voice registers as a desiccated husk that’s almost irrelevant. A supersized “Diamond Sea” aside, the rest is pro forma-yet-transfixingly instrumental: from the too-many-guitars, sweet ‘n’ sour mass-cramp of “Fire Engine Dream” to the shattering post-rock labyrinth of “Kim’s Chords,” The Destroyed Room shines. 4 stars