The Los Angeles Times and The
New Yorker (among others) have celebrated
L.A. guitar/drums/sampler duo No Age as punk personified, but they seem to be
confusing the band’s DIY ethos, live energy, and general sense of community
with the sound coming through the speakers. It seems like a trivial point to
argue, but for someone picking up No Age’s Sub Pop debut, Nouns, based on this sort of press coverage, terms like
“punk” can seriously shift expectations. Whether they’re commercially tainted
or underground-oriented, those expectations will likely lean toward anger,
exuberance, and perhaps even velocity—not the sort of noise- and
sample-caked inertia Nouns
embodies. As with the duo’s primary influences—Sonic Youth and (especially)
My Bloody Valentine—it’s a rich, lovely sort of inertia, the kind in
which you can spend days uncovering previously unheard melodies or phrases. But
even as the drums bash away (the weirdly Jan & Dean-reminiscent “Cappo”)
and the distortion meter redlines, Nouns‘ effect is hazy, numbing, and merely pleasant—quite the opposite
of experiencing No Age in person.