Nouns is the first “proper” (i.e. not-a-compilation-of-singles) album from LA noise-poppers No Age, and it took a while for me to feel out the shape of it.
You see, No Age are one of those bands that I’m supposed to like. For a start, they’re signed to Sub Pop who – although they don’t always nail my personal tastes – rarely sign a band I can’t see the merits in. Also, they’re a hip noisenik two-piece with little regard for the niceties of commercial rock’n'roll; they make a fizzy bleared-out psychedelic soundscape that seemingly marries shoegaze to Stooges-era US punk.
And yet, I found Nouns astonishingly hard to get into the first time through. I’m not sure why; my notes here have words like “whiney” or “pretentious”, and phrases like “trying to hard to sound like they’re not trying” or the more damning “call Sonic Youth’s lawyers” For me at least, No Age were not an instant experience.
But it appears that what we have here is what is a grower, because the second time through Nouns I started falling for it. The dumb fuzzy melodies and Meg-White-on-speed drumming have a rather endearing quality, as if No Age are perhaps some sort of spoof a la Flight Of The Conchordes, a send-up of no-wave and grunge-era noise rock.
Delivered from behind the drum-kit, Dean Spunt’s vocals have a kind of strained drone to them, a surf-bum Neil Young style that fits with the walls of Randy Randall’s guitar and the general air of being wasted and lazy in California. The simpler tracks Nouns are just straight-up rock’n'roll pop in a lo-fi style. “Cappo” is disarmingly honest, experimental by the virtue of not being experimental, and “Sleeper Hold” is short sharp happy garage rock – four chords and a stoned vocal hook, and then it’s over almost before you’ve had time to realise how much you were enjoying it. No Age close Nouns with “Brain Burner”, and it’s the ultimate book-end – under two minutes of sheer pop brilliance hidden in a hedge of distortion.
No Age make some more experimental journeys as well, weaving loops and textures into the background of the more mellow pieces. “Things I Did When I Was Dead” is a slice of psychotropic jangle over a rhythmic sample that could be the sound of some miniature factory in the dimension next door to our own, and reminds me of the sort of thing Anton Newcombe puts out in Brian Jonestown Massacre’s more mellow moments.
Meanwhile “Keechie” and “Impossible Bouquet” are layer-painted in shimmer and fuzz, like sunny seventies super-8 cine-film loops blurred by time and soundtracked by a stripped-down version of My Bloody Valentine. The growing quality of Nouns is due to the fact that it takes a few listens through for you to realise the massive differences between the tracks which, at a first glance, seem to be very similar.
And so I count myself converted to the way of No Age, but with certain reservations which are probably as much a function of my cynicism as anything else. You see, Nouns still reeks of studied nonchalance. It sounds artless and understated, but in the same way that the Strokes-led New York scene made me wary of. You know those hipster types who’ll spend a week trawling through charity shops specifically so they look like they spent three minutes getting dressed out of their parent’s wardrobes? I can’t help but get some of that vibe here, that vibe of really caring an awful lot about appearing not to care at all.
And I should let it go for my own sake, really, because Nouns is a great album (packaged beautifully, I might add) that makes me yearn for summer to arrive early. Perhaps the world tries to sell us faked coolness so often that when we encounter the real thing we get this knee-jerk reaction of mistrust … who knows. Put it this way – hold your knee down, and give No Age a decent chance. They’ll steal your heart if you let them.
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Tags: alternative, experimental, garage, No Age, noise, Nouns, rock'n'roll
