No Age
On some level you could try to compare No Age to Lightning Bolt: There's the bottomless energy coming from two guys (including a drumming vocalist very unlike Phil Collins), both connected to their area art scenes (the pair curate at L.A.'s the Smell and collaborate on videos and visual and performance art) with one member running his own label (in this case, drummer Spunt's PPM).
What marks No Age's approach, though, is that the ex-members of the Wives (right, ex-Wives) also know their way around the achy, slow-mo ambient patch: "I Wanna Sleep," drifting loose-hinged, builds into phased Deerhunter psychedelia (incidentally, during SXSW, dressed-up Deerhunter dude Bradford Cox called these guys his favorite newbies); "Neck Escaper" flutters for a while until growing into rollicking cymbal-smash drums, a catchy guitar angle, and bouncy surf vocals; "Sunspots" approximates its name if the sun were constructed of softly pulsating rays of feedback. The guys rule at spacey fragments, nighttime lo-fi fuzziness, but it's the snotty hooks in chattering anthems like "Boy Void" and "Everybody's Down" that make us dance Deacon-style around Stereogum HQ: Experimental shoegazing skate punk with a sometimes Ramones/Dickies pronunciation (and production) key. If you want to hear the band the way nature intended, locate any of their five limited-edition vinyl EPs (each released on a different label). If that doesn't work for turntable-free folks, wait until August's Weirdo Rippers, which coming out on Fat Cat, culls tracks from those previous slabs.
Stereogum
What marks No Age's approach, though, is that the ex-members of the Wives (right, ex-Wives) also know their way around the achy, slow-mo ambient patch: "I Wanna Sleep," drifting loose-hinged, builds into phased Deerhunter psychedelia (incidentally, during SXSW, dressed-up Deerhunter dude Bradford Cox called these guys his favorite newbies); "Neck Escaper" flutters for a while until growing into rollicking cymbal-smash drums, a catchy guitar angle, and bouncy surf vocals; "Sunspots" approximates its name if the sun were constructed of softly pulsating rays of feedback. The guys rule at spacey fragments, nighttime lo-fi fuzziness, but it's the snotty hooks in chattering anthems like "Boy Void" and "Everybody's Down" that make us dance Deacon-style around Stereogum HQ: Experimental shoegazing skate punk with a sometimes Ramones/Dickies pronunciation (and production) key. If you want to hear the band the way nature intended, locate any of their five limited-edition vinyl EPs (each released on a different label). If that doesn't work for turntable-free folks, wait until August's Weirdo Rippers, which coming out on Fat Cat, culls tracks from those previous slabs.
Stereogum
