Guitars clang like warped bells. A 56 year-old woman with an atonal drawl wishes she could be music on a tree; bass and drums boil in a thick, viscous mix. Ah be still my expectant eardrums – Sonic Youth are back.

The Eternal draws a line under the band’s relationship with Geffen and the series of albums that culminated in the (relatively speaking) melodic conventions of 2006’s Rather Ripped. To mark their first release under Matador, Sonic Youth have gone primal, regressing to a place where the filth and the feedback are reinstated at the top of the food chain.

Lee Ranaldo has described the band as a pendulum “swinging back and forth between shorter, more concise pieces…then pieces that get more sprawling and experimental and explore in different directions.” It’s the former that has spawned The Eternal. Forget elongated psychedelic jams or expeditions into frequencies only dogs can detect. This is an album that, for the most part, filters the band’s early punk ethos through present-day Sonic Youth.

Anti-Orgasm recalls the punk riffs that snapped at the heels of Goo’s grubby blues. Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore kick flaky liberal ideals around like a deflated football, as guitars pinball between reverb heavy brevity and fractious chords that cascade with all the subtlety of nails on a blackboard. Sister’s warm analogue sound and tart attitude is alive and well in the hollow beats pumped into Calming the Snake’s rough and ready discord. And then there’s No Way; a grown-up, slightly less surly version of the angry squall that skewered 1992’s Dirty.

In addition to the visceral mechanics of noise, less frenetic tones can be found in Antenna and Massage the History. The former is a blissful brew of chugging guitars and circular rhythms that provide the perfect backdrop to Moore’s assured and melodic vocal. The latter is distinguished by the rare appearance of an acoustic guitar and Kim Gordon’s unstable singing, unsettling in the way it alternates between breathy seduction and brittle fragility.

Despite aspects of The Eternal having a distinctly retrospective feel, it isn’t a tired rehash of old ground. The passing of a decade or two may enhance its appeal, but temporality isn’t what makes it a fine Sonic Youth recording. It’s the brace of chords that bounce out of the Ramones and into the veins of Poison Arrow, the flower-power harmonies that get under the skin of Walkin’ Blue and the trace of Joy Division that provides What We Know with its kinetic energy.

This subtle detail not only makes sure The Essential is a legitimate addition to the band’s oeuvre, but it also acts as a little thank-you note to the very thing that gave birth to Sonic Youth in 1981. The thing that precedes them, will outlive them and the essence of which quietly informs the album’s title.

The Eternal is out now on Matador through Remote Control Records.