(Lee's always been a Deadhead, but Thurston doesn't tend to play like this.) By weaving that kind of more familiar and nostalgic playing into SY's always-abrasive style, Thurston manages to keep us on our toes all these years later. On "Aphrodite," they're practically in Hendrix territory. On the album's last three songs, they rip solos that hearken back to rock's jammy, psychedelic era. That makes the most truly unexpected part of Rock n Roll Consciousness the parts where Thurston and his band actually do kinda sound like classic rock (or at least like Dinosaur Jr). When it comes to Thurston Moore, the norm is to expect the unexpected.
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Thurston and his bandmates seemed to build up serious knowledge of all the guitar-based rock that came before them, and instead of trying to fit into a pre-established lineage of guitar heroes, they tore it all down. The majority of the guitar work on Rock n Roll Consciousness excels in the same way Sonic Youth excelled three decades earlier.
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In true SY fashion, instead of reaching an explosive peak, it evolves into dissonant, droning territory. My favorite is "Cusp," which is led by a building, climactic guitar pattern that's some of the most interesting guitar work of Thurston's post-SY career. It'll never be the same as hearing Thurston, Kim Gordon, Lee Ranaldo and Steve Shelley all collide at once (though Thurston, Steve, MBV's Deb Googe, and guitarist James Sedwards are all on this album, which is not a bad team at all), but plenty of moments on Rock n Roll Consciousness come pretty damn close. But the further we get from Sonic Youth's existence, the more Thurston's solo music seems geared towards songs that could be on Sonic Youth albums. When Sonic Youth were still a band, Thurston Moore's solo albums usually had him exploring sounds that he didn't focus on in his main band.
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It's campfire singalongs one minute, and then on "Not Running," Feist is joined by chanting group vocalists who sooner recall a cheerleading squad. (And if you've heard that Feist samples her pals Mastodon on this album, it's at the end of "A Man Is Not HIs Song." Her song abruptly fades out into Mastodon's "High Road" like it was done by a radio DJ who's short on time.) The backup singers on this album are often as important as Feist herself, whose voice is as unmistakable on Pleasure as it is on her biggest songs. On "Any Party and "A Man Is Not His Song," Feist is joined by a chorus of backup singers who sound like they might actually be at a campfire, rather than in a recording studio. On "Get Not High, Get Not Low," her percussion section works in a chaotic-yet-organized clangor to an otherwise quiet song. Moments of "Wish I Didn't Miss You" are embellished by tripped-out, hazy, vibrato-ing vocal effects, and that song has one of the album's most heartbreaking lyrics ("I felt some certainty you must have died, because how could I live if you're still alive.