Welling of a scarecrow with a flaming jack-o'-lantern as its head. Music Bad Moon Risings style has been described as noise rock, no wave and experimental rock. The album begins with "Intro", a short instrumental featuring several guitars, described by Michael Azerrad as "a melancholic, meowing slide line playing off a delicate stack of crystalline arpeggios." "Intro" segues into the next song, "Brave Men Run (In My Family)". The song begins with a single riff repeating for a minute, before Gordon murmurs, "Brave man run in my family/Brave men run away from me." The riff fades into the album's third song, "Society Is a Hole", "a one-chord hymn to big-city anomie". Sonic Youth's use of transitional pieces in the album was inspired by their live shows, which featured either Moore or Ranaldo tuning guitars for up to five minutes while the other played slow transitory guitar riffs or prerecorded sound collages. "I Love Her All the Time" features extensive prepared guitar by Ranaldo and the use of one chord, with a noise section in the middle; like many of the album's songs, it focuses on texture and rhythm rather than melody. The second side of Bad Moon Rising, which comprises the experimental "Ghost Bitch" (which features Ranaldo on acoustic guitar and references Native Americans' first encounter with European settlers), "I'm Insane" and "Justice is Might", expands on the soundscape concept; the songs feature repeating guitar riffs that segue from one song to the next, while Moore and Gordon mumble cryptic lyrics. "Death Valley '69", the album's closer, was the result of a collaboration between Moore and New York singer and poet Lydia Lunch. Describing the album's style, Pitchfork called it "not so much a collection of songs as it is an extended, unending uproar, seamless in sound and theme." Critical reception AllMusic noted the album's dark nature, writing: "An album quite unlike any other in the colorful Sonic Youth canon, Bad Moon Rising captures the New York band in 1985 during its most morose phase, one that is quite forbidding yet fascinating all the same." Trouser Press wrote that it "[exudes] all the horrible beauty of a mushroom cloud on the horizon." Pitchfork described the album's aesthetic as "compelling." Accolades Bad Moon Rising ranked at No. 42 in Alternative Press's list of the greatest albums of 1985–1995, surpassing Daydream Nation. Track listing All music and lyrics written by Sonic Youth