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UK Albums Chart - #39, 1995 "... singer-bassist Kim Gordon may step more to the fore and songs may shimmer more than bristle. But basically this is one more reliable yet predictable Sonic Youth album ... finds Sonic Youth taking no radical new steps but instead holding onto its original groundbreaking formula and watching the big pop world come to it." - Los Angeles Times "... their most audacious step yet: an easy listening album. Mellow by their standards, anyway ... these songs unfold over even-tempered rhythms and guitars that linger rather than attack. A splatter of distortion may enter, but the effect is mostly languid and wonderfully hypnotic ... Sonic Youth never let you forget that a storm often lurks beneath the calm. A-." - Entertainment Weekly "Four Stars ... Sonic Youth have maintained their arch attitude, an irreverence that vanished from alterna-rock when the big money came in ... it takes skill to imitate commonplace three chord rhythm guitar phrases while simultaneously sending those phrases out of the galaxy. Which is, of course, a thing Sonic Youth do particularly well. One minute the rhythm crunch feels reassuringly conventional, the next minute it's all strung out and droning: a triumph of deconstruction." - Rolling Stone Sonic Youth's 1995 transitional release Washing Machine is notable for the almost 20-minute long closing number, The Diamond Sea, issued in a dramatically-edited version as the album's first single. Featuring for the first time bassist Kim Gordon almost exclusively playing guitar, Washing Machine was included on both the NME and The Village Voice lists of the best albums of the year.