Thurston Moore - "Trees Outside the Academy"

Ecstatic Peace!, 2007

Comparing it to Moore's "Psychic Hears" from 1995, this album is just mediocre. It couldn't attract my attention while I was listening to it. It's just a worse sort of Sonic Youth with accoustic guitar somwhere in the background. Much worse - I should add. The previous record was incomparable more interesting and absorbing. Containing songs such as "Queen Bee and Her Pals", "Pretty Bad", "Feathers" or "Blues from Beyond the Grave" it has made a really good impression on me. Refering to albums like "Goo" and "Dirty" it was much "sonic". Unfortunatelly, Thurston has done it only once. The only one Moore is not a whole Sonic Youth and that's why "Trees Outside the Academy" can't be compared even with the latest Sonics' album. I can't understand pointless and unnecesarry experiments like "American Coffin" with disorderly thumping piano or "Thurston@13", which reportedly is an authentic recording of Moore when he was thirteen. However, there are some songs on this album which are quite good. For me, first of all, "Wonderful Witches" and "Off Work" - these are songs in which accoustic guitar doesn't distract. To sum up, "Trees Outside the Academy" is a thing probably only for the uncritical fans of Sonic Youth stuff. To the others, I definitely recommend the first Thurston Moore's album.

3/5