It's good. Interesting hearing all the noisy s**t you'd expect from Lee to be done by a violin.

If you're looking for some w**ky avant garde s**t from Thurston he did an album with Nels Cline (now of Wilco) about a decade ago called "Pillow Wand", it's deadly.

I'd one listen to this album & wasn't impressed - acoustic guitars, (dodgy) female backing vocals & some s**tey violin.. who the f**k's Thurston trying to be? Damien Rice with Lisa Hannigan and Frames-esque violin thrown in for good measure? It just made me wanna stick on Rather Ripped.*

I heard him do a solo version of "Incinerate" in the Hub on 6 Music - it was fookin' class.. made me think this album would be more like that, but it's not really.

(*= I will have to give it a 2nd spin!)

OK.. so it was never gonna be as bad as all that, but on 2nd listen, I was still not even vaguely blown away by anything on this record. It just sounds like unworked SY demos/ unwanted tracks.. Lee's poetry albums are more of an intriguing listen.

you listened to it again, starbelgrade?...

i think this album is pretty good... ok, so it falls on the less experimental side of the fence but there's enough going on to make it one of my favourites of the year...

Yeah - I gave it another shot.. and believe me - i adore Sonic Youth, so I really wanted to fall in love with this album - but nope, not for me I'm afraid. My brother loves it though, if that's any consolation!