Fame Academy!
After last year's relatively melodic Sonic Youth album "Rather Ripped" some fans and critics expected front-man Thurston Moore to return to his experimental roots on this, the official follow-up to 1995's "Physic Hearts". However, he confounds and surpasses all expectations here with an astonishing album that blends the best bits of SY with carefully constructed lo-fi folk.
The eerie "Frozen Gtr" kicks-off proceedings in an under-stated fashion, a blues influenced guitar motif beckoning the listener into an album that is accessible without pandering to commercial concerns. "The Shape Is In A Trance" is similarly beguiling and perhaps explains those Sonic Youth go acoustic proclamations churned out by other magazines, which turn out to be rather lazy as it happens. "Honest James" is simply dreamy, another catchy guitar riff is deployed to fine effect but "Silver > Blue" is even better, a mournful epic that showcases some imaginative guitar playing and Moore's undeniable talent for crafting off-kilter melodies. The inspired use of Samara Lubelski's violin adds something a little extra here and highlights the Sonic Youth man's ability to get the best out of collaborators (Dinosaur Jr's J. Mascis adds guitar here and there too). The sprightly "Fri/End" lifts the tempo and mood, nimble guitars dancing across the mix on one of the most commercial sounding numbers this man has ever produced, the fact it sounds like "Slanted and Enchanted" era Pavement is definitely no bad thing.
By now as a listener you're probably getting comfortable and adjusting to folk-rock Thurston with added tunes so he throws in a dirge-y experimental number to upset the apple-cart. "American Coffin" kicks-off with a barrage of distorted guitars before descending into some directionless noodling on a seemingly out of tune piano. This is followed by the delicious "Wonderful Witches" a close relative to Sonic Youth's "Sunday" but with added distortion and a couple of killer guitar solos. "Off Work" is somehow even better, it's the two halves of the record competing for supremacy and meeting halfway, the folksy, melodic elements merging with crunchy, distortion heavy guitars. It may sound like an uneasy balance but it works magnificently, it's the finest instrumental this writer has heard all year and I've listened to a lot of records.
The haze then lifts for "Never Light", a quiet considered folk ballad of reasonable quality. The album's title track brings things back up several notches though and is a real peach, reminiscent of former glories, the album's longest track is a collection of killer riffs dispatched in no-nonsense fashion. It's a credit to Moore that he can create such excellent work after twenty-six years in the business. The spoken word "Thurston@13" ends the album in a rather perplexing fashion, a teenage Moore engaged in some kind of "sound theatre".
An essential purchase for September "Trees Outside The Academy" is a pastoral beauty and one of the best albums released in 2007 so far. Not bad going for a solo album released without fanfare on the artist's own label (Ecstatic Peace).