Best New Music: No Age "Everything In Between"

[Tim-Æ]

Three years ago, LA produced an underground community of punk rockers who went out into the real world and promoted the independent scene as best as they could. From that group came No Age - a guitar, drums, and vocals duo who made noise rock punk anthems that rang in your ears long after the record/concert was over. Layered with monotone vocals they dropped a series of EPs later compiled into their first "album" called Weird Rippers in 2007 and then a year later, the damn near perfect, critically lauded Nouns which showed up on my best of 2008 list (which it's moved up on btw). In 2009, after touring extensively they dropped one of the best EPs I've ever heard called Losing Feeling a collection of punk meets experimental dream pop. It was a success.

The word around the campfire was that their 2010 album Everything In Between would be a culmination of their previous works, a combination of the styles. After listening to it non stop for the last few hours since it leaked, I have to say that I don't really feel that's accurate. Regardless, once again, No Age produces a superb album, one of the best of the year.

The problem though is how polarizing it's going to be for you. This is the exact type of indie/noise that people loathe. Screeching guitars, drone like vocals, simplistic instruments. The ear bleeding guitars produce a primal scream that rings in your mouth with how screeching and noisy they are. I love it, some don't. The album opens with "Life Prowler" a chugging drum beat that builds methodically for a minute almost before segueing into the vocals with ascending riffs. Those monotone vocals are there of course, but it's poppish in a way to where some many not mind it too much. This is also present on the first taste of the album that we got, "Glitter" the second track and most accessible song on the album probably. It's mostly a combination of Nouns and Losing Feeling which is a great thing as I love both those releases. The chorus of "I want you back underneath my skin" is easily their most understandable of lyrics, but the airy screams of the guitars that screech along like track make it blistering and beautiful at the same time.

"Fever Dreaming" blends the punk rock revivalism No Age has been promoting effortlessly and then combining their own screams as they screech on the guitars, blending them so closely it's hard to decipher which is which. Songs like "Depletion" and "Valley Hump Crash" have crossover potential but as always noise rock will get lumped in with "heavy metal" as being impossible to reach to the masses given how lacking in taste most people are.

Listening through it though, a peculiar moment occurs in the second half. For the first half of the record you mostly get straight up noise rock punk jams, and then staring with "Sorts" and lasting through to "Shred and Transcend" you're drilled with 3 and a half songs of straight noise, with almost no lyrics/vocals at all. What starts out as a lyrically dense record, breaks off at track 9 and lasts for 3 more tracks, just experimental noise that isn't blistering, or screeching. It's a bold move by the band, but it pays off, through "Dusted" and "Positive Amputation." Instrumental tracks are present on practically ever No Age release, but the dynamic presence of 3 straight tracks with minimal vocals is daring and well worth it as it builds to the final cut "Chem Trails."

Like Arcade Fire, No Age had a huge reputation to live up to. Nouns was dynamite, and frankly one of the best pure rock records of the last decade. Everything In Between is of course, not better than Nouns but it's by no means a failure of a record, if anything it shows a band maturing and improving their style of punk rock noise to perfection almost. They never overshoot and they never regress. It's just a complete album of straight up noise. And it's fucking great.

A-