No Age's big breakout record jettisons pretty much everything that was interesting about them and puts in its place a somewhat generic, Sebadoh-ish 90s indie rock. Everything is fuzzy and tinny and loud, and while the songs are catchy enough while they're on there's nothing close to the previous record's "Every Artist Needs a Tragedy" or "Neck Escaper". "Things I Did When I Was Dead" is the one track that combines No Age's punk and ambient tendencies effectively, but the rest is just the same old catchy punk rock. The drums sound like a drum machine and the lo-fi-ness, rather than opening up any new creative avenues, just seems to hem the band in--the songwriting isn't good enough to make a virtue of the style, like Pavement's was, and the poor quality recording just sounds like an affectation and not something that really means much of anything. Pavement had the good sense to foreground the bass in their early records, which was interesting in such a lo-fi record; this is just fuzzy guitar and desultory vocals.
MY RATING:
4.8
No Age - "Teen Creeps"
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