We all know how much I hate 80s music so let us pray together that Dinosaur Jr. is not a stereotypical 80s band.
So there is a lot of 80s-ness to "Freak Scene," mostly in the underlying tinny distortion. I'm reminded of The Jesus and Mary Chain, though the distortion isn't quite as brazen. The effect makes the album sound like it's being played way too loud and the speakers are barely holding on before exploding. It sounds this way even at a low volume.
But Bug isn't an album of 80s music. Dinosaur Jr. is more of an alternative/punk band with a touch of noise rock. The tone of the music is pretty maudlin, especially the vocals which are low in the mix and low in energy. The lead also prefers to sing slightly flat and double-track his voice. It's a bit juvenile. The band on the other hand has great energy. The punky power chords and beats get a bit tiresome but the band is tight and there's some interesting filler on occasion.
I wasn't overly impressed with Dinosaur Jr. or Bug, but it was inoffensive enough for the most part. The penultimate tune "Don't" is about as bad as noise rock gets. There just aren't words for this atrocity. Try to imagine someone shoving steel wool through your ear canals while playing bagpipes an inch from your head. That's the sonic experience of "Don't". It's possible that Dinosaur Jr. had a bunch of shitty old equipment lying around that they were going to throw out anyway, so they decided to play as much loud shit as they could at once to try and blow it all up. They probably could have achieved the same musical effect by hitting their guitars with hammers.
In the end half the music on Bug is ordinary alternative nothingness, the other half is annoying loud music you play to clear your house of drunk people at the end of the night. 2 stars.
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