Listening to No Age can be likened to dreaming you're going 12 rounds with Joe Calzaghe. It's an odd, surreal and disorienting experience. Their dreamy, noisy fuelled 3 minute pop songs are unlike anything else you're likely to hear all year. Last years Weirdo Rippers was a raw, aggressive and pulsating beast, barely containing the Californian duo's antics. The follow up, Nouns , is a more playful and (slightly) more polished effort that keeps the naivety and out right fun of their debut. Everything happens in a whirlwind of noise. 'Miner' kick starts the whole event. The sound of echoing guitars flowing down an aural plug hole greets your before the hammer-drill sound of the drums kick you in the face and a further barrage of guitars hack saw their way into your brain. The vocals are barely audible, drone like, but act as a floating counterpoint to the mess of music around it. By contrast, 'Eraser' is a much more sedate track. Its Jesus and Mary Chain-esque intro of simple guitars chime in unison over the buzz of feedback. For most of its life it's purely musical until the high hat thrash breaks your focus and those LA accented vocals come in.Each track possesses a different focus, showing a range of influence and execution that was meerly hinted at on Weirdo Rippers . 'Teen Creeps' might begin with the line "Wash away what we create " but you're going to have to scrub for months to get these infectious riffs out of your head. Sure, the production might have had a lift from the basement to the lounge, but there's still something uniquely homely about these recordings. They're never clear, there's a buzz and a noise constantly clouding everything. And where this can sometimes distance the listener from what's going on, with Nouns it just wraps you tight in a blanket of aural pleasure.What's even more pleasing about Nouns is the way that No Age have developed their songwriting. There's tracks here that they'd never have had the confidence to record previously. The practically sprawling 'Errand Boy' creaks under the circular thrash of feedback drenched guitars and drums that menacingly brood around the robotic vocals, sounding like a soundtrack for stalking. 'Sleeper Hold' sounds like something the Ramones might have recorded if they'd lived on the West as opposed to the East Coast whilst 'Here Should Be My Home' is a slice of indie-pop so fine The Shins can only dream of creating it.Nouns is a triumph. The sound of a band stretching its muscles and pushing themselves to create something fresh, focused and utterly joyful. You're going to have to go a long way to find a better way of having this much fun, with all your clothes on, in 2008. 92%[Download Nouns]Links No Age [official site ] [myspace ] [20 questions ]