Monday, April 21, 2008  7:17 pm 

The Cat’s Whiskers

The moment we have been awaiting for expectant has come to pass, No Age’s ’sophomore’ album Nouns steps inside our aural space with that combination of raucous low fidelity fuzz and scintillating melodic hooks that got us so addicted to them in the first place. Nouns works at different levels, so its hardcore knuckles are tattooed with ‘LOVE’, which is the hand of power pop prettiness and rapturous shoegazing melodies, the hand that strokes, and ‘DANCE’, which is the hand of stomping pounding rhythms stabbed with crystal shards of distortion, the hand that strikes.

Fly like a butterfly and sting like a bee, but bigger.

You can place these tunes inside a carefully crafted mixtape for your sweetheart, or mosh to them in the snake-pit of snapped ankles, blissed up explorations soaring in a sky of blue and gold precipitate into a sweaty bloody blitzkrieg like an eagle descending upon the proverbial sheep from the spaces above, armed with claws of iron that won’t let go. While most bands struggle to master one of these magick arts, No Age excel at both, in the same way as teen age The Who, Hüsker Dü, Daydream Nation-era Sonic Youth or My Bloody Valentine, which is some company to be in. Real nice, perhaps Indie Rock’s finest moment this decade so far.

No Age- Cappo

Having bound us with the smoke pillars and velvet lace of their haunted ‘After Dark’ album, ‘Resin’ finds Religious Knives coming down for the kill. They take it slow, and in the Escher-esque architecture of shadows of this dark and dusty cellar we find it difficult to determine the shape of that which shall shed our blood, is that a silver blade held by a hand of pale ivory, or reflections of light projected in the yellow eyes of a black panther slowly revolving around our tied and palpitating body? The animal musk of The Velvet Underground spiral drones intermingles with the decadent perfume of a David Lynch noir to devastating effect, this is death disco in the best tradition of Public Image Ltd, and when Religious Knives decide it is the moment to finish us off the only thing we’ll regret is having to abandon this spectral chamber which they call home.

Religious Knives-Everything Happens Twice

We are hearing rapturous reports about the sold-out Chromatics London shows, and look forward to Wednesday when they will be happening in Brighton, you still have time to fetch one of the tickets we have left for it in the usual outlets, or here, watch out for the special Italians Do it Better Glass Candy deal kids, it’s a bargain.

Then. Love Saves The Day comes back to Heist on Sunday after a crazed launch party last month. 8-1AM FREE ENTRY. And Love.

labels >> Religious Knives, no age

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