Friday, May 9, 2008

No Age - Nouns

No Age
Nouns
(05.2008, Sub Pop)
Verdict = The same, lovable No Age

After the glory of No Age’s, Weirdo Rippers, the Los Angeles noise punks are back with a Sub Pop full length, Nouns. To be honest, while Weirdo Rippers was fresh and utterly delicious, I had a hard time imagining the band really building on the dynamic they had created. I mean, there is only so much you can do with feedback, power chords and some punky drums right? This is where I am supposed to say “Wrong!” but I still feel like that is pretty much the case. No Age still manages to rock pretty substantially on Nouns though. There are no real revelations here for those familiar with No Age aside from the record being more cohesive as a whole in comparison to Weirdo Ripper’s collection of singles, but that shouldn’t dissuade those who enjoyed Weirdo Rippers because the No Age formula is still as sweet as ever and Nouns contains some of their best anthemic jams to date. The transition from the fuzzy three minute haze of “Keechie” into the album center piece “Sleeper Hold” stands as an adequate reason alone to adore this record. Nouns is pretty accessible to in comparison to similar bands like Times New Viking or Psychedelic Horses Hit (:)) by keeping the high end feedback to a minimum. So, for people who just can’t stand the grating speaker corruption that seems to be Siltbreeze’s fortay, but still want to rock with a little bit of noise, No Age are your darlings. It may not be the almost perfect, revelatory event some have lauded, but Nouns still hits the spot with sloppy, disjointed, poppy, avant punk.

-Mr. Thistle

No Age performing "Sleeper Hold" live

1 comment:

H Jeff said...

I just bought this album on vinyl. I am pleased with it, however my record player is so buzzy as it is that this record is rendered pretty much unintelligible. Luckily I got a digital download too, I like it a lot.