Labels: sncl – Unwound
Review by: Alex Deller
One of those ones that I’ve been mulling over for months now, and I’m still not how to go about it. At core, No Action are a mumbly, washed-out, weary-sounding punk band who manage a near alchemical feat: to sound distinct yet comfortingly familiar. Their sound is as crumpled and careworn as Linus van Pelt’s security blanket, trundling between laborious crashes, melodies that sound positively onerous and moments of brisk, tuckered-out urgency. An R.E.M. appreciation era Hated filtered through a weird, watery Christie Front Drive production job is the first thing that springs to mind, while a further … and perhaps too-obscure-to-be-helpful … point of reference would be some sort of Five-O / Chino Horde / Q-Factor / Evergreen amalgam. The results are blearily wonderful, the whole thing working perfectly together to form something that’s lush, tumbledown and curiously moving. Superb, in a word.