Dinosaur Jr. ★★★★ Sweep It Into Space JAGJAGUWAR. CD/DL/LP

It ain’t broke, so Dinosaur Jr. don’t fix it on resonant twelfth full-length.

Once asked why he avoided Sonic Youth-esque alt tunings, J Mascis replied that even traditional tunings often left him paralysed by choice. Certainly, Mascis’s output over the last three decades has testified to the inexhaustible inspiration he’s drawn from his ragged, gloriously overdriven format. But this monomania would only grate if the records weren’t consistently thrilling, and Sweep It Into Space is another excellent instalment, spiritual offspring Kurt Vile proving an unsurprisingly sympathetic producer. As ever, seemingly gnomic phrases are rendered resonant by empathetic chord-changes, Mascis’s worn croak and his emotive, primal guitar heroics, with I Ain’t’s repeated “I ain’t good alone” and Walking To You’s elegiac tremolo swoops particular moving. And Lou Barlow’s contributions – the only real adjustment to Mascis’s formula since his return to the fold – are both keepers, in particular the heavy, overcast folk rock of closer You Wonder. Stevie Chick