Divorced from all the talk about the return of the lo-fi sound, the scene revolving around the band's home base in L.A. (the Smell), and the group's rep as no-nonsense noise punks, you have the music of No Age. All that stuff is just background -- what matters is the sound coming down the wires as Nouns clatters and hisses on through to your ears. The duo of Dean Spunt (drums and vocals) and Randy Randall (guitar) are proudly noisy, drawing influence from early-'90s lo-fi acts like Eric's Trip as well as the New Zealand sound of that decade. They make no attempt to clean up their sound (though it does seem slightly more professionally recorded than the singles that made up their first release, Weirdo Rippers) as amps hum, drums clatter like garbage cans, and voices shout and holler. It's an arresting amount of noise and it may put you off initially. If you stick with it past the first wave of fuzz, though, you'll be captured by the songs, because No Age aren't about noise alone. Below that less than pristine (to be kind) sound there are songs. There are rollicking freak-outs ("Here Should Be My Home"), folk songs tossed about by waves of fuzz ("Eraser"), and careening rockers with hooky choruses ("Cappo"). Take them out and scrub them up a bit, and they would be as shiny and clean as things you might actually hear on the radio. After a polish it's not hard to imagine "Teen Creeps," for example, playing in the background of a teen movie. "Sleeper Hold," too, could be the theme song for any manner of triumphant scene; the chorus has the kind of hook you'll be singing all day. Choosing to bathe the songs in noise adds an extra layer of sound, sure, but also creates an epic battle between melody and noise, between beauty and grunge, that gives the album a real sense of drama. Also adding to the sense that something is at stake on Nouns are the lyrics. There are no simple love songs here -- mostly twisted fragments of isolation and ruin with the (very) occasional bit of tender hope thrown in to keep you from throwing in the towel. In the final count, melody and beauty, fractured as they may be, win the day. Like fellow noise poppers Times New Viking did on their awesome album Rip It Off, No Age turn noise into gold on Nouns.
--- - |- The video for No Age's "Eraser" premiered on MTV, which makes no sense at all unless you know that Fall Out Boy's Pete Wentz was hosting. The video for No Age's "Keechie"-- also from the Los Angeles duo's debut album, Nouns-- premiered on the internet, which makes quite a bit more sense. Even if you think these guys are 1990s indie-rock throwbacks, they couldn't have debuted a video i...
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As reported, Randy Randall wrote us up a couple days ago and explained how he was asked to remove his Obama t-shirt before No Age's performance on Late Late Night With Craig Ferguson . At that time, Randy mentioned it was supposed to air on 10/27, eight days before the election. Well, last night I stumbled home, turned on the TV, and saw Dean and Randy staring back at me, rocking through the l...
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Sub Pop is giving away a No Age mp3 called "Eraser" in support of the upcoming album Nouns and damn, it's a good one.My friend Mairead Case put every single one of No Age's songs from their last album on her Idolator Singles Ballot (then, inexplicably, declined to list the album itself on the albums list). I thought it was pretty funny at the time, but now I think maybe she was right.
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Summer in a college town is a unique thing. Half of the season, the streets are empty, with a sense of a community or some other motivational poster bullshit. The other half is filled with what can be best described as working tourists, usually students and professionals who gather around the campus for random conferences, and larger events like student orientation. Student orientation at a l...
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I'm still in the middle of gathering all the half year lists of 2008! A list of the best albums of 2008 so far according to all Moggers. If you haven't voted yet, go to this thread: http://mog.com/SA/blog_post/169238 and post your top 10 albums of 2008 so far. You still have until next Wednesday!Now, my nr. 4:Band: No AgeAlbum: NounsBest Track: EraserBest Line: Jump on the tube/Just to see you...
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The latest release by LA's favorite DJ…SWINE FORKBEARD!!!! Here he masterfully combines the new and the old, mixing No Ages' "Eraser" and DJ Kool's "Let Me Clear My Throat" to create something really fresh. As always, look forward to upcoming SF material and enjoy this great track…. Let Me Erase My Throat-Swine Forkbeard Remix
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2. No Age Nouns For an aging punk like myself it's sometimes difficult to pull myself away from the classic punks and get down with what the kids are considering punk these days, but somehow noise punk brings me right back to my roots of punk rock and maybe even out does some of the classic stuff when it's done as well as No Age does it on Nouns . I was introduced to No Age with last year'...
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 "Nouns")
