Music
This Is the Sonics
Rock pioneers return 50 years after debut, still slay
Punk before punk, garage rock before anyone flagged it, the Sonics’ 1965 Here Are the Sonics mixed Chuck Berry and Little Richard with greaseball white-boy originals. This reunion concedes nothing to the following half-century. Rob Lind still bleats sax like he’s pummeling a sandbag, Jerry Roslie’s howls would still make primal-scream therapist Arthur Janov plotz, and producer Jim Diamond drives Larry Parypa’s stabbing guitar in deeper than ever. The new songs sound vintage; so do the covers: Their take on the Kinks’ “The Hard Way” out-rocks the original, echoing the Brits’ more loutish “You Really Got Me.” They can still teach their garage offspring a thing or two.