Goff's Pick of the Week- Nouns by No Age

I think the best way to describe No Age is passive revolution. Here is a band that embraces the sort of slacker I don’t care aesthetic into their music, it shows in their songwriting, its hard to make out a lot of the lyrics and even if you do make them out they seem distant and diffuse. Somehow at the same time though their music, the guitars, the crashing drums and the bass are all completely unique, a sort of what if in which the Sonic Youth decided to play punk rock within the confines of a two to three minute song. What’s more is that It’s apparent that they are confident enough in their sound that they don’t really care what you or I think about them. On Nouns they jump back and forth between distorted ballads, somber songs, and beautiful noise collages without ever really straying above the 3 minute mark of a song (with Teen Creeps at 3:25 being the exception).  The fact that Nouns is so seamless is ultimately what is so impressive about it, the fact that they can switch from mood to mood without making the whole album seem compartmentalized and constricted is their real talent. On top of that the songs are great. Tracks like Miner, Eraser, the previously mentioned Teen Creeps, Sleeper Hold, and Brain Burner all are great songs on their own that will easily satisfy pretty much anyone who likes music, especially abrasive music. And while any of those songs could have easily stole the show, none of them really do simply because all of the tracks are really well written and all of the other tracks that don’t have such simple compositions are equally as good. In this way No Age is a bit like a bait and switch, come for the sonic punk rock, stay for the unbelievable rest of the album.

Ive had Nouns on my Ipod for over a year now, and it really has a way of sticking with you. Its only thirty minutes, and who doesn’t have thirty minutes to listen to music? No Age has a certain swagger, like a beat up boxer that isn’t going to get out of the ring, like a band that is not going anywhere anytime soon, and that is undoubtedly a good thing.