Losing Feeling

As suggested by its title, ‘Losing Feeling’ is an ephemeral experience. Clocking in at just over 13 minutes and spanning four tracks, No Age’s second release since the brilliant EP compilation ‘Weirdo Rippers’ comes on like a taste in the mouth rather than sticking around for the full three courses – not that it doesn’t leave an impression. Although it is separated into tracks, the record is threaded together by its consistency, playing out more like a muddied-up classical suite than a combination of separate songs.

Each track, although unique in itself, slots into the unified whole and tells its own piece of the story. The opening title track T’s up the atmosphere by breezing in with harp-like guitars, building gradually over rolling drums. Genie, the most song-like on the EP, sounds a bit like distorted Pavement, and Aim at the Airport is a dreamy concerto that creeps over an open space – buzzes with white noise – only to drift off to the sound of the sea and footsteps over shingle. And the closer, You’re a Target, is more what we expect from a band renowned for combining the shoegaze of My Bloody Valentine/Jesus and the Mary Chain, the no-wave of Sonic Youth and the post-hardcore of Trail of the Dead. Inevitably, the result is 90s slacker rock shrouded in noise. There is even a hint of Jane’s Addiction in there.

This is No Age reduced down to its cleanest, more pristine components. There are still the sheets of reverberation and the fuzz of ‘Nouns’ but this time with more control – there is a tightness to this record absent on the two previous releases. It is the sound of a band naturally progressing, refining the values it naturally holds dear but refusing to compromise. (9)

For more lo-fi check our review of Washed Out – Life of Leisure