NO AGE Review

As a band, I’m not really sure what to make of No Age. They’re really just a couple of skate punks that make noisy songs, but… there’s gotta be more to it than that. The tracks on their new album Nouns vary from barely contained sound collages to bashing garage stompers, but it’s consistently enjoyable, confounding and above all else: interesting. And let’s face it. Sub Pop releases as of late haven’t exactly blown the proverbial roof off of the sucka. It’s been a whole lot of people that wouldn’t have record deals if they weren’t affiliated with Band Of Horses or Wolf Parade for the past few months. So this begs me to ask: do I actually like this new No Age album or am I just pleasantly surprised that it’s a really good Sub Pop album?

I think the verdict is both. I’m excited to see Sub Pop digging themselves out of a rut, and I’m happy to hear a band that is equal parts Psychocandy, Black Lips and musique concrete. I like how on the opening “Miner”, everything is given such an equal place in the sound field that I can’t tell how many guitars are there, I’m not sure if I can hear a tambourine or not, and I honestly can’t tell if more than one person is singing or not. That might sound sarcastic, but I like a not-so-obvious album here and there.

And then there’s bits like “Keechie”, where it’s just a big pastoral and echoey mess of guitars framing a rhythm track made up of hiss that slowly opens up and goes away. No chorus, no vocals. Just a neat little recording experiment that gives you a quick break from the mid-range pounding that No Age seems to revel in.

On the other hand, I’m glad that Nouns barely lasts over a half of an hour, as it’s not the type of noise pop that I could handle in large doses. You have to understand that the guitar tones often fall somewhere between the I-Doser experiments and the sounds produced by that guitar pedal that Buzz Osbourne made as a joke for DOD back in the day. I’m willing to bet that this band would own you live, though. It sounds like even this relatively lo-fi production is barely able to contain them.

Hats off to Sub Pop for unveiling such a daring signing. Other articles of clothing off to No Age for rocking out with little care for the rest of the world. They sound like they’re having a blast, and it’s contagious.

- Marc