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| No Age |
Like all No Age releases, this one grew on me. The immediate difference was how the songs felt fuller, both in terms of recording quality and it terms of more conventional structure. Add that to the length of the album (almost 40 minutes, a record for them) and the word “maturity” comes to mind.
Yes, they have finally reached the next logical step in their evolution. But simply growing older and a bit wiser doesn’t mean that they’ve given up their energy. Rather, this energy is directed in new and exciting ways. “Valley Hump Crush” combines the joys of old No Age with the new focus. It has the same catchiness but there’s even more heart than before. “I don’t want to go to bed/The Sun’s still shining in my head” gives you some idea of the blissed out California world these two still inhabit. But the ideas are better fleshed out than before. Even the chaotic pace of “Fever Dreaming” can’t disguise the fact that they’ve worked harder on this without losing the energy that made them so likable in the first place.
Initially, I worried about this new approach upon first hearing it. For one, the reverb and effects are gone, making it sound more direct. Muscle like that found on “Life Prowler” allows you to actually respect the fact that they could tear down that wall. Also I wondered whether having so much thought behind the emotion would let it succeed on that visceral level. Thankfully, I was wrong after giving it a few more listens. So give this one a bit more tries than their previous work, it does take some getting used to. But ultimately, it is a very enjoyable work. Even the pacing of the ambient interludes works well, with most of them helping to mellow out the latter half of the album, with the album front-loaded with intensity.