No Age: Nouns

By: Dennis Cook

No Age are cosmic bovine, rough beasts gnawing curiously flavored cud, masticating granular punk, sloppy psych, strange ambient kernels and dusty art rock scraps. Not many could get as much done in 30 minutes as this possessed duo accomplish on Nouns (Sub Pop). Randy Randall and Dean Spunt bleed a messy, beautiful crimson stream whose DNA includes Shellac, The Jam, Public Image Limited, My Bloody Valentine and The Durutti Column. But they've taken a power sander to their ancestors' fingerprints, adopting their forebears' serrated outbursts, drones and splashes of pretty melody to their own ends. By turns, raw and lovely, Nouns, only their second full-length, hints at masterpieces to come. Clever and unusually angled, No Age live up to their chronology defying name by refusing to exist in any one space, any one genre. One senses during this half hour jaunt that all fields are open to their romping, and we might be wise to trail them just to see where they go.