»By The Fire« ist Thurston Moores siebtes Studioalbum, das auf seinem eigenen Label Daydream Library Series erscheint. Auf dem neuen Album ist der ehemalige Sonic Youth-Gitarrist gemeinsam mit Deb Googe (My Bloody Valentine), Jon Leidecker - aka Wobbly - (Negativland), James Sedwards, Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth) und Hem Doulton zu hören.

Vor der Isolation während der COVID-Pandemie arbeitete Thurston Moore bis zur dritten Märzwoche 2020 in Aufnahmestudios im Norden Londons, um das Album zum geplanten Release fertigzustellen, denn obwohl die Musiker nicht sofort auf Tour gehen werden, bestand er darauf, »By The Fire« noch im Jahr 2020 zu veröffentlichen. 2020 ist die Zeit des radikalen Wandels und des kollektiven Bewusstseins.

Thurston Moore schrieb passend dazu neun Songs der Erleuchtung. In Anlehnung an Albert Aylers »music is the healing force of the universe« verstehen sich die Aufnahmen als Liebeslieder in einer Zeit, in der Kreativität unsere Würde darstellt und die Demonstration gegen die Kräfte der Unterdrückung ist.

»By The Fire« ist eine Friedens-Party - mit Liedern aus der Hitze des Gefechts. Entstanden in Zusammenarbeit mit dem in London lebenden Künstler Radieux Radio, der das Cover entwarf und obendrein einige Texte schrieb.

Es könnte durchaus eine Sonic-Youth-Platte aus der damaligen Zeit sein, wenngleich die Songs heute deutlich länger sind (allein vier über zehn Minuten). (...) By The Fire ist Balsam für alle jene, die gerne an Zeiten von Daydream Nation (1988), Goo (1990) oder Dirty (1992) zurückdenken.

(Good Times, Oktober / November 2020)

One of the things that made Sonic Youth such a powerful entity was the supernatural chemistry of the bandmembers. At various peaks of their collective powers, each player brought a distinctive voice that rose to an even more elevated form when combined with the others. Extracted from that chemistry, Thurston Moore's solo material gives a better view of his conflicting tendencies, with seventh proper solo album By the Fire embracing both noisy, chaotic tangents and the blurry impressionistic poetry that has long been the core of his songs. The record begins with the kind of layered, intricate guitar figures and steady rock rhythms that have been Moore's calling card since the early '90s. Album opener "Hashish" is a moody, driving tune with a vocal melody that revisits "Sunday" from Sonic Youth's 1998 album A Thousand Leaves. The ham-fisted grunge rock of "Cantaloupe" and fuzzy, churning push of "Breath" are also well-covered ground, sounding like they could fit in nicely in different parts of Moore's back catalog. Instead of presenting "Breath" as a compact rock song, however, he stretches it out into a sprawling, multi-part epic. The track turns dynamically as it moves from a lengthy gentle intro through to passionate verses, explosive instrumental sections, and breakdowns into formless squalls of feedback. This kind of dense song construction becomes the factor that sets By the Fire apart from the rest of Moore's solo efforts. "Siren" follows the same approach, building over the course of a 12-minute run time from long, lazy stretches of chiming guitars to rolling waves of rhythmless sound. The vocals begin at just about nine minutes into the song after the completion of a full cycle of tension and release. Songs like "Locomotives" and "Venus" are similarly built, each burning on for well over ten minutes as they rise and fall through various movements. These intense full-band extrapolations are broken up by more subdued moments like "Dreamers Work," which find Moore alone with a guitar, rambling through cloudy autumnal reflections. The album is one of the more intentional chapters of Moore's solo work, melding his long-studied Branca-esque walls of guitar and mystical lyrical viewpoints with a new, patient approach to composition. By 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.

(by Fred Thomas, All Music Guide)