Chelsea Light Moving - s/t (Matador)

http://boomkat.com/downloads/663793-chelsea-light-moving-chelsea-light-moving

This is as good as 80s Sonic Youth.

Just thought I'd mention that first in case you were liable to skip over this review due to the phrase "Thurston Moore's new band".

I nearly gave Chelsea Light Moving a miss because of this but I'm glad I didn't. Definitely worth taking a leap of faith to get over that gut feeling it's just going to be average at best.

It's got a slightly more punk feel to it than Sonic Youth and I'm not just saying that due to it finishing with Communist Eyes. It strips out the slightly nicer pro-sound and becomes a lot more jarring and heavy without descending into just some self indulgent guitar noise noodling.

There's some really great bits where it almost reaches Caspar Brotzmann Massaker or High Rise levels of glorious, horrible atonal guitar riffing. At other points there's actual chug riffs.

And, of course, there's plenty of bits that don't sound a million miles away from 80s Sonic Youth.