Thurston Moore Albums

1995

Psychic Hearts -  84%

The first true solo album by Sonic Youth front man Thurston Moore may at first feel sort of odd, just because his main band is doing so well around this time. But it makes sense if you see it as an outlet of sorts for songs that wouldn’t normally fit into that band’s merging of styles and its fine-tuned filters. Take the title track: “Psychic Hearts”, which is a two-chord chug and lyrically Moore’s reaction against all of the frustrations of his youth (I love it, as personally this album was a big part of my own high school experience). “Patti Smith Math Scratch” is in the vein of Sonic Youth’s “Sugar Kane” for sure but a bit more rough around the edges; “See Through Playmate” would have worked on Experimental Jet Set (1994) and might be a more affective rocker than anything on that album; “Ono Soul” is a tribute to Yoko Ono’s solo career (an acquired taste for sure) and her profound influence on Moore. All of this is very effective noise rock, and super catchy and in line with Sonic Youth of the 1990s.

            Using SY’s Steve Shelly as the drummer on the songs also just unites Moore’s alignment with the Sonic Youth cannon, but this album is not just some meager b-sides. I would say some of Moore’s best songs exist on here, as I also would mention the slow intro to and then rave up culminating in “Hang Out”, the tough love tale of “Cindy (Rotten Tanx)”, and the mostly jagged instrumental “Tranquilizer” which alternates beautiful guitar lines with the strange alternate guitar tunings. Some other songs that have moments that work- “Feathers” is a mildly radio friendly song, with spacy vocals; “Staring Statues” has a lot of the Iggy Pop swagger to it, “Cherry’s Blues” is his most timid ballad yet. It must be said that the first half of the record is definitely stronger than the second, and songs like “Female Cop” and “Blues from Beyond the Grave” has no real reason to exist. The epic closer “Elegy for All the Dead Rock Stars” as fascinating and meta-morphic as it is, probably didn’t need to be as long (almost 20 minutes) as the other wise stellar “Diamond Sea” from SY’s Washing Machine (1995). However, a product of prime CD era album length is allowed and most of the track is a solid exploration of what rock music can be when it’s allowed to drone on. So whether he is rocking hard or chilling on a chord for over ten minutes, Thurston Moore definitely makes a mark on rock history with this record.

Best Songs: psychic hearts, see through playmate, patti smith math scratch, cindy

2024

Flow Critical Lucidity -  86%

Thurston Moore is the kind of songwriter that can do anything he wants. I mean that too, he can write a hell of a catchy song, but he tends to dwell in the noise-making sphere he helped create in the 1980’s with Sonic Youth in its heyday. On his solo albums since the 15 year delusion of his band, Moore really has created all kinds of albums- noise abstraction full album length songs (Rock n Roll Consciousness (2017)), attempts at Moore straight forward merging of melody and revolution (the awesome and wild Psychic Hearts (1995) ) and mostly, an creative mix of both. While he has had his successes but never really matched the might of say mid 2000’s Sy, this album is a happy return to form mainly because it sounds at peace with who he is at the ripe old age of 66. At seven songs, his new album is the perfect length for what he has to say in 2024.

Whether its songs containing elements of the glory of guitar explorations that are mainly rooted in rock music (the Laetitia Sadier guesting “Sans Limites”) haunting but charming atmospheric slower rock songs (“Shadow” and “We Get High”, two of his best songs in quite a while) or tribal more drum-based harking back to his beginnings ("Rewilding”) the album really hits on all fronts. He is not one for verse-chorus-verse structure, and god bless him for that, as his group was always good at bringing disruption to the normal- even here with the epic closer “The Diver”, echoing late period Wire/Colin Newman. When it doesn’t quite work, for me opener “New in Town” is the weakest track and the 7 minute “Hypnogram” has a nice ending but is not as entertaining as the rest, it is still kind of fascinating. When noise rock became fashionable in the lovely time in music from about 1986-1996, Moore was perhaps the biggest influence in rock music. He still sits here on the sidelines, quietly directing us all.

Best Songs: We Get High, Sans Limites, Shadow