Chelsea Light Moving
Matador
2013
Rating: 7.5 caramel creams out of 10
When you're in a band like Sonic Youth for nearly three decades and then start a new band, it's gonna be damn hard for even the best reviewers to put aside their preconceived notions and give it a fair shake...and I am far from one of the best reviewers. But that is exactly what Thurston Moore did, putting the Youth on hiatus after his split with Kim Gordon and starting Chelsea Light Moving. Yeah there are three other band members including dudes from Hush Arbors and Sunburned Hand of Man and a gal who plays some violin, but let's not fucking kid ourselves - we're listening to this to see Moore is up to post-Gordon.
Turns out, what he is up to is releasing a record that sounds pretty much exactly like Sonic Youth minus the parts where Kim Gordon sings. I'm sure some other more verbose folks will wax poetic on this release and draw some other random parallels, but let's not beat around the bush - it sounds like a bunch of songs that might have been outtakes from Sonic Youth's early-to-mid nineties period..."Dirty," "Jet Set...," those sort of records. And I ain't complaining. Hell, I like this better than I have any Sonic Youth releases in quite some time.
Sometimes change is good. In this case, pretty much staying the same is even better.
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