Album Review: Simon Werner a Disparu by Sonic Youth

Simon Werner a Disparu is a French thriller set in 1992 about some missing teens in a suburb outside of Paris.  The Sonic Youth is a good fit for the music as they were at peak form back in 1992 and are good at creating dark, scary moods with their music.

Of course a good fit does not mean it's a good album, and though I'm sure the music works fine in the movie as a standalone piece of work it is not something I would ever find myself turning to.  Usually for an instrumental movie soundtrack to grab my attention there has to be something in the music that draws me to it.  Take the music that Peter Gabriel did for The Last Temptation of Christ as an example.  That music has an ability to grab the listener with it's melodies and musical play even if they have never seen the movie or even if they never knew it was a movie soundtrack.  The music can stand on its own as an album.

For me this Sonic Youth album isn't there.  Sure it is good mood music and if you want to sit in a dim room reading Stephen King this would probably be good music in the background, but as something you would play just to listen to the music it's not going to happen.

Following the Rhapsody rating method I give it 1 out of 5 stars for Just OK.