No Age – An Object

No-Age-An-Object

Hey, wanna hear a pithy, one-sentence review of this album? Here goes: No Age? More like Japandroids! Because, you know, they’re a two piece, and they’re kind of noisy, and they’re playing vaguely anthemic music? You know, I was ready to snarkily compare this album to a microwaved version of Post-Nothing, but the buzzy hardcore-by-way-of-Mission of Burma/shoegaze “I Won’t Be Your Generator” shows they can actually write tunes you can sing along with. “C’mon Stimmung” is another thrashy number with antagonistic us-vs-them lyrics, which for some reason was released early to hype the album up. Throughout, No Age attempt to rein in their weirdo qualities, with mixed results. Sure, the trebly guitar scraping on “Defector/Ed”” is pretty cool, but it’s not enough to carry a three minute pop song. “An Impression” does a somewhat better job with its contact-mic-produced percussion, but the backing track with its guitar arpeggios isn’t nearly beefy enough to support the monotone melody. The dour mood that runs through the album works on “Running From A-Go-Go,” a drab ode to the worse aspects of touring,  and “A Ceiling Dreams of a Floor” is a droney ballad vaguely reminiscent of Swervedriver’s poppier work. Hopefully the members of No Age can improve their songwriting chops for the next release. Better luck next time, boys. (Sub Pop, subpop.com) Topher Duguay

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