Thurston Moore’s fourth full-fledged solo album is also the first since the break-up of Sonic Youth, which the divorce from Kim Gordon seems to have finalised. Unlike the last, more acoustic albums, Moore sounds more like his former principal band again on »The Best Day«. Not quite as introspective as »Demolished Thoughts«, for example, the typical mixture of eternally long jams, short rockers and songs that can almost be described as conventional can be heard here. With the title track in particular covering the latter. This new-found freshness may primarily be due to Moore’s seemingly liberating move to London, although his comrades-in-arms (with My Bloody Valentine’s Debbie Googe on bass, old pal Steve Shelley on drums and James Sedward as additional guitarist) certainly appear to have a large part to play in it. Instantly well recorded, the eight new songs are nevertheless hardly formulaic. They simply don’t come close to the great deeds performed by Sonic Youth. And Thurston Moore, at the age of 56, which is anything but youthful, is certainly not going to learn a new way to play his guitar. And so we hear mostly simple riffs in unusual tunings, solos of three notes and mainly feedback, typical shredding, now and then a conciliatory harmonica intro and on » Tape« even a sitar. With this offering, Thurston Moore routinely continues to fill the niche he has created for himself in alternative art-noise rock for over 30 years.
The Best Day
