The mid-80s were tough times for bands with noisy guitars. Punk was long dead, while its American cousin, hardcore, was running out of gas, leaving poker-faced goths, fey indie types and cartoonish hair metallers to run riot.
Into this void strode Dinosaur Jr., three suburban kids from Amherst, Massachusetts who invested the sounds of their heroes – Black Sabbath, Neil Young, the Rolling Stones, The Byrds – with the energy of Black Flag and Minor Threat, in the process reviving that most maligned of rock traditions: the guitar solo.
