Thurston Moore: The Best Day review – former Sonic Youth frontman returns to noise-rock

In the years since Thurston Moore’s 2011 album, Demolished Thoughts, the framework surrounding the former Sonic Youth frontman has collapsed: the US alt-rock godfather relocated to the artisan bread capital of east London, and his aloof cool was skewed by his very public split from Kim Gordon. After the almost-unplugged quietude of that last album, here Moore retreats to the comfort of noise – that odd blanket of distortion – which is ramped up by the presence of My Bloody Valentine’s Deb Googe and Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley. The unorthodox time signatures and an anti-everything attitude mirror the discord that made his former band a talisman for hipsters and discerning nerds everywhere – even if quite what it is Moore wishes to challenge isn’t always clear. Whether its anger is aimed at an individual or an establishment, the energy on the Best Day sounds like the conspiracy before the rebellion, rather than the anarchy itself.