No Age - Weirdo Rippers

No Age could be a band that Sonic Youth might even now aspire to. Weirdo Rippers is their both their first album and a compilation of works. They stagger between blissed out waves of noise and short, punchy punk assaults. The obscure titles - Boy Void, Neck Escaper - are not elucidated by the lyrics, which are usually crushed beneath the sheer sonic density. Melody emerges, as if by accident, from layers of feedback and static, as No Age lurch between ideas and moods like delinquent virtuosos.

Each track is curt, exact and imaginative: two contrasting ideas are shoved together mercilessly. I Wanna Sleep matches soporific glitches against agitated insomniac thrashings. Everybody's Down takes the Beach Boys' sunshine harmonies and feeds them to bleak depression. Sun Spots sounds like a field recording of a solar phenomenon. Sparky, taut and original; a cursory listen to Weirdo Rippers would help out those many bands who are finding it hard to escape their influences. [Sonic Youth]