Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	79/100
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
The A.V. Club	B+
Entertainment Weekly	B−
The Guardian
Los Angeles Times
MSN Music	A−
NME	8/10
Pitchfork	6.8/10
Rolling Stone
Spin	8/10

The Eternal is the 15th and final studio album by American alternative rock band Sonic Youth, released on June 9, 2009 by Matador Records, their first on that label. It was their first studio album in three years (since Rather Ripped), making it the band's longest delay between studio albums.

The album peaked at No. 18 on the Billboard 200 and was the band's highest charting album of their career in the United States and highest charting album since Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star (1994).

After Rather Ripped (2006), the band's contract with Geffen Records had expired and the two parties decided to go their separate ways. At the same time, Jim O'Rourke was gradually replaced with ex-Pavement bassist Mark Ibold. Gordon suggested recruiting him for live shows after having played with him in Free Kitten. Moore found that Ibold "immediately locked in, and had really prepared himself to the point where he knew the songs better than we did".

When the band decided to record, it seemed natural to include Ibold. The process involved rehearsing the songs during the week in the basement of Moore and Gordon's house and subsequently recording them over the weekend. Shelley recalled, "It was like having a different project every week [and] it felt like we were doing a single every weekend. You kind of have to keep on your feet, the speed aspect to this album was very enjoyable". Eventually the band signed with Matador in 2008.

However, the band had begun writing much of the material before changing record labels. On the pop-rock aspects of the album, Moore noted, "I can sort of see a relationship between some of The Eternal and Dirty in terms of the dynamic". He argued that the band "definitely wanted to make songs as opposed to doing an avant-garde opus". On the choice of Matador, he explained that "we decided that they're a really strong song-supportive label". Ranaldo noted how they found inspiration in their earlier recordings on Daydream Nation, which "had an energy that we'd kind of forgotten about, and some of that energy and the experience of doing those songs impacted on the new record."

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