release - no age - everything in between

type: album

released: 28th september 2010

label: sub pop

genre: noise rock, punk, noise pop

On their second album L.A. two-piece No Age have chiselled away at the harsher, fuzzier elements of their sound to create a record focused around songs in a more traditional sense. After the first two you could be forgiven for thinking they've gone a bit soft, but it's as far as they go in that direction, and for the most part they keep the best parts of their sound.

There's a lot less frenetic shouting in general, and the tighter production makes everything feel a little bit more restrained. You don't feel like a burst of feedback could hit you at any second, but that doesn't mean there's nothing to be excited about. The opening door-knocking drum-tapping of Life Prowler is reminiscent of Miner, and the consistent pace and rhythm of the first two tracks has a sense of the duo warming up, that they're storing the tension. Some of it can be heard being unleashed on the following track Fever Dreaming, where howling guitars compete for space with the vocals without ever betraying too much attention to detail.

Musically, this is miles ahead of its predecessors. The majority of Weirdo Rippers was charming for its irreverent structures and vibrant sound rather than its beautiful melodies, whereas here there is a blending of the two, giving the album a greater range. The cleaner riffs show off sincerity and thought rather than just raw emotion, but there is still plenty of energy. Depletion has a poppy groove that wouldn't sound out of place on debut full-length Nouns.

Katerpillar and Positive Amputation between them provide some gorgeous distortion that gives the album a bit of diversity in terms of the shape of the songs, and they also act as great build-ups to highlights Valley Hump Crash and Shred and Transcend respectively, the latter of which is noisy and chaotic, and true to their older sound doesn't get properly started until about halfway through.

They may have cleaned up their sound a little here, but they haven't lost their feeling. There is diversity in the way the songs sound and feed into each other, and there's a good mix of fast-paced songs such as Fever Dreaming, laid back ones where the line between singing and talking is blurred in idiosyncratic No Age style like Common Heat, and beautiful guitar-led instrumentals like Dusted. Some of the middle section feels a bit too much like filler, but overall it's an enjoyable listen.

The last song, Chem Trails, combines several signature elements of the band's sound, and might well be shining a light into their future. The meandering guitar and call-and-response vocals recall early Yo La Tengo, but the real catch of this song is that it builds in a linear way in the space of less than three minutes, something that most of their work hasn't managed to up until this point, and an obvious benefit of the slightly improved production.

Maybe it's because it was Weirdo Rippers, a compilation of their work up to that point that brought them fame, but Nouns showed that while they had lots of interesting ideas, they hadn't fully worked out how to structure an album. With Everything In Between it seems like they've nailed it, even if they've left the best until last. And while this isn't immediate as Nouns, it's just as exciting and well written.

No Age - Glitter