In this week’s installment of our “Christian Rock” Webcast, Rolling Stone’s Christian Hoard has his ear glued to Sonic Youth’s fierce sixteenth album The Eternal, the New York band’s first LP for indie label Matador Records. “This is basically a noisy rock & roll record,” Hoard says. “The Cliff’s Notes summary is that it’s a return to heavier, messier stuff after a few albums that were more songful and more reigned in than we’ve come to expect from Sonic Youth.”

Hoard also compares The Eternal to “a Baskin-Robbins of guitar flavors: There are lots of them and many of them are tasty.” Among the highlights are the Thurston Moore-sung ballad “Antenna,” Kim Gordon’s catchy “Malibu Gas Station” and “Walkin’ Blues,” perhaps guitarist Lee Renaldo’s best song in years. In Rolling Stone’s four-star review of Sonic Youth’s latest, Will Hermes wrote “The Eternal sums up almost everything this band has done over three decades, punk sneers and psychedelic guitars pimping a proudly pretentious belief in rock as art.”

Also in the New Music Report, Hoard reminds viewers to be sure check out our track-by-track guide to De La Soul’s 1989 debut album 3 Feet High And Rising as Rolling Stone celebrates the 20th anniversary of the genre-breaking hip-hop classic LP.