Used to be that a Sonic Youth album release was a pop-culture event, a welcome eruption of sound from the bowels of New York City that threatened to bury the institution of rock music and start anew.

Well, it was for me, anyway.

That was more than a decade ago, before the band eked its way into the Lollapalooza -- or was that Homerpalooza? -- consciousness with celebrated "crossover" albums such as Goo and Dirty.

While the quartet spent the latter half of the '90s edging back toward the sonic fringes -- a more comfortable setting in which to make the kind of noise they wanted to -- it gradually became apparent that, contrary to what fans like me might have thought, weirder did not necessarily mean better.

So it is that guitarist-singers Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon, Lee Ranaldo and drummer Steve Shelley kick in with NYC Ghosts And Flowers, arguably the first major-label Sonic Youth release since Dirty that's worth getting excited about.

Their edge nicely sharpened from recent experimental work released on their own SYR label, the band no longer sounds like it's toiling to make unconventional rock music sound conventional, or vice versa.

Instead, they've recaptured the same mystique that made them great in the first place. Darned if I know exactly what that is, and it's probably better that I don't. But with NYC Ghosts, Sonic Youth dust most of the bombast of the rock days, and, with support from wisely chosen co-producer Jim O'Rourke, let their alt-tuned guitars eddy delicately to either warm and ambient (Free City Rhymes) or stark and angular (Side2Side) effect. Other high points include Gordon's Nevermind (What Was It Anyway) -- her best whispery vocal turn since 1986's Shadow Of A Doubt -- and Moore and Ranaldo's respective takes on post-modern beat poetry, Small Flowers Crack Concrete and the title track, which sidestep potential silliness before unravelling into suitable chaos.

Of course, it's not always an easy listen. But you knew that already.

Track Listing
1. Free City Rhymes
02. Renegade Princess
03. Nevermind (What Was It Anyway)
04. Small Flowers Crack Concrete
05. Side2side
06. StreamXsonik Subway
07. NYC Ghosts & Flowers
08. Lightnin'