Thurston Moore - The Best Day

Thurston Moore

The Best Day

20 October 2014

Matador

 

3.5 stars out of 5

 

 

Once upon a time there was a band called Sonic Youth, and music was never the same for ever after. Thurston Moore was one of that band’s trio of extraordinary songwriters, and perhaps the most widely known to the general public (though, in all honesty, if you are with-it enough to know the name of one member of Sonic Youth, chances are you know them all). The Best Day is Moore’s fourth solo LP, and his first since 2011’s acoustic album Demolished Thoughts. Joining Moore this time around are Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley, My Bloody Valentine bassist Debbie Googe, and guitar-genius-at-large James Sedwards. Despite the presence of two of the finest axemen on the planet, The Best Day is refreshingly devoid of any pyrotechnical fretwork. Instead aiming for repetition and textures, the songs (with only a couple of exceptions) let Moore’s vocals do the majority of the work in carrying the melody.

 

To paint in broad strokes, The Best Day seems like an attempt by Moore to be Sonic Youth again without Gordon and Ranaldo to distract the audience’s attention. Shelley’s distinctive drumming underpins the feeling that this is an attempt to regain old glories, though, to be fair, those glories were often Moore’s to begin with. “Detonation” echoes “Silver Rocket,” while “Speak to the Wild” could be an outtake from Washing Machine. There’s no “rock and roll” on The Best Day, at least as “rock and roll” was approximated by SY on Goo or Dirty; instead, Moore’s compositions are extended mood pieces, though all very band-centric (ain’t no avant-garde noodlings within a few hundred kilometres of this thing). If you’re a long-time fan, you’re likely to be waiting (and waiting, and waiting) for Moore to break the dam and let the experimentation flood through. And you’ll be mostly disappointed. But if you approach The Best Day as a quiet, restrained album of singer-songwriter fare, you’ll find adequate satisfaction.

 

reviewed by Richard Krueger