For their latest spiritual odyssey, Thurston Moore and John Moloney deliver the volcanic and violent maelstrom, Full Bleed. But unlike the helter-skelter out-jazz of Caught on Tape (“Full bore savage highway stuff, the mind exploding with wall melting emotion,” says Moore/Moloney about that platter), Full Bleed collects nine Herculean sludgefeasts dripping of gnarly metal-damaged heaviosity and punk-jazz skronk-splattered fury, transmitted in an alien language only this duo can convey. “They became songs as they were played,” Moore/Moloney explain about their writing process. “Composed on the fiery tongue, like how all real cool improv needs to be experienced.” And as far as assigning actual names to the songs? “We titled them to identify them as distinct ‘songs’ because that is what they need to be to survive in this fucked landscape of politician dung patrol. They became snakes.”
With the pulverizing thumps ‘n’ thwacks and cymbal-crashing annihilation Moloney inflicts on the skins melted to Moore’s hefty metallic wasteoid licks and jazzmongering fuckery heard on opening salvo “Age Limit,” the title track and “Dispute,” it’s apparent Full Bleed is a distinct beast thick with black metal riffer vibes, sans corpsepaint.
Full Bleed penetrates a stratosphere of brutal heaviness and spazzcore jazz traversed by Moore and his fellow figureheads in yesteryear downtown NYC at defunct experimental/jazz hubs, The Knitting Factory, Tonic and The Cooler. Pedal-hopping, apocalyptic doom metal torture (“Full Bleed”), mangled avant-jazz noise noodlage (“Self-Rule”) and tasty SY-like space rock jammage (“Arguing with a Balloon”) portends two dudes on a mission of absolute devastation. Recorded at Sonelab in Easthampton, Massachusetts with oft-engineering cohort Justin Pizzoferatto and cover art courtesy of Moloney, Full Bleed is the heaviest of spasmodic bliss from two kindred bohemian noise spirits.
A tour in support of Full Bleed may transpire. Or not. “John and I, whether in Caught on Tape, or in any of our other side projects ALWAYS tour,” says Moore. “We are soldiers of the road, warriors of the wing – buses, vans, cars, trains, bicycles — we get to gigs and we plug in whether we are expected to or not. We just may play again in support of this LP if we can find the minutes where the universe allows us to be in the same room at the same time.”