Beyond

Beyond was the band's first album in a decade and the first by the original lineup since Bug. It was recorded and mixed at Bisquiteen in Amherst in 2006 with John Agnello and Justin Pizzoferrato engineering, and mastered by Greg Calbi at Sterling Sound. Mascis wrote nine of the eleven songs. Barlow wrote Back to Your Heart and Lightning Bulb. Fat Possum released it in the United States and Play It Again, Sam in Europe. It entered the Billboard 200 at number 69 and reached number 19 on the Top Rock Albums chart.

The band played Almost Ready on the Late Show with David Letterman. The video for Been There All the Time, directed by Matt Dillon, features Thurston Moore and his daughter Coco. Almost Ready was later used in the Major League Baseball 2K8 and Skate 3 soundtracks.

Pitchfork scored it 8.4 and called Almost Ready "an almost platonic ideal of a Dinosaur Jr. song". Its reviewer wrote that Crumble "smacks of" Repulsion, a song from the debut.