Buy Now
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
Sep 22, 2020It’s the longer pieces that really glisten, and they come in several forms. ... Moore’s band, it should be noted, sound increasingly powerful, growing ever groovier and more confident with each release. Their guitars may have unusual tunings, but the players are certainly in-tune with one another, mentally and musically speaking. In summary, cacophonies ahoy!
-
Sep 24, 2020By the Fire isn't a drastic shift, but as Moore goes deeper into the sounds he's been exploring for decades, he uncovers new magic.
-
Sep 22, 2020It’s with By The Fire that Thurston Moore goes properly into orbit. Make no mistake; this is an album that stands shoulder to shoulder with the very best of his alma mater.
-
Classic Rock MagazineSep 25, 2020By The Fire is a massive antidote to our age. [Oct 2020, p.87]
-
Sep 25, 2020It’s better than some actual Sonic Youth albums, and that alone makes it an essential listen. A thriller from the first second to the last.
-
Sep 24, 2020A smooth gear shift from 2013’s ‘The Best Day’ and 2018’s ‘Rock and Roll Consciousness’, ‘By The Fire’ manages to stand out with ease. Here Moore elegantly channels his sense of poise and calm in a word going to shit, easily proving why he remains a hero in the world of alt rock.
-
Sep 23, 2020The result isn’t just Moore’s finest solo album: this is some of the most remarkable music he’s ever been involved in.
-
MojoSep 22, 2020The results isn't just his best album post-Sonic Youth, but some of the best music he's ever released. [Oct 2020, p.90]
-
Sep 22, 2020His music is now more about the deep, nuanced dig into established territory than striking out to plant a flag someplace new, plus exploring different contexts for his signature sound through continued collaboration. [Oct 2020, p.30]
-
Sep 29, 2020It’s a record that justifies and even demands the extra space to explore; Moore and co. take their sweet time to sculpt squalls into riffs and lure extended meditations into melodic focus, like a roving crosshair that finally locks on its target.
-
Oct 5, 2020His continuous work positions him as the Bob Dylan of the alternative rock era, and By The Fire sums up every aspect of his artistry.
-
Oct 12, 2020There’s quite a lot of music here, some tracks abstract and open-end, others more conventionally song structured, all of it rather good.
-
Sep 28, 2020On By the Fire opener "Hashish," Moore and his trio wholesale borrow the intro, main riff and melody from Sonic Youth's 1998 single "Sunday," while the most poppy and compact track on the LP, "Cantaloupe", freely cops the guitar rhythm of SY's 1992 classic "Sugar Kane." But once Moore becomes tired of repurposing old riffs, noise breakdowns, and tunings, he reverts to simply repeating intros and harmonies across the album's nine tracks and 80 minutes, melding together elements from the sluggish "Calligraphy" and the guileless "Dreamers Work."
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 4 out of 6
-
Mixed: 2 out of 6
-
Negative: 0 out of 6
-
Jan 4, 2021
-
Oct 3, 2020Truly mind blowing! I’m not sure there’s anything else “out there” that compares at the moment. Simply gets better with every needle drop.
-
Sep 26, 2020