Thurston Moore, Scorces
(Neumo’s) Seriously, I don’t get why everybody seems to be using words such as “poppy” and “melodic” as if this is some huge departure for Thurston Moore. Sure, his new solo record has Samara Lubelski’s violin all over it, the album’s guitars are occasionally acoustic, and Thurston himself even plays piano on a few cuts. But the set is no sudden moral shift to accessibility, as moments on Trees Outside the Academy are every bit as noisy, abrasive, and haunting as, say, “The Sprawl,” “Dirty Boots,” or any number of cuts from his catalogue with Sonic Youth. Likewise, SY have been melodic since, like, “Expressway to Yr. Skull.” Sure, Trees is hardly the squealing dissonance-fest of some of Moore’s other one-offs like Mirror/Dash (or his band’s SYR series of the late ’90s). But we can be thankful for that, and appreciate this as a collection of music that fits right in with the stirring, thoughtful work Sonic Youth have produced of late. JOHN VETTESE

Junior Brown
(Tractor) In my younger alt-country days, I thought I was hot alt-shit. Western-cut shirts and Too Far to Care—take that, grunge upbringing! Eventually, a real country musician will bust any young fan’s city-slickin’ cherry, and the man who undid my pearl snaps was Oklahoma’s Junior Brown. Sun Records–era influences, rockabilly hellfire, a throat like Skoal: He’s got those. But it’s Brown’s onstage showmanship that puts him in a higher country echelon. Watch him wind his fused guitar/lap-steel apparatus out of tune for kicks, only to immediately wind it back and pick himself into a frenzy. Hear him re-create the tones from Close Encounters on lap steel. Feel the simultaneous pop of the crowd’s snaps. SAM MACHKOVECH