NO/NO
And just like that, NO/NO’s recorded output has doubled. Sound and Light is the Milwaukee dream-pop band’s first full-length album after a pair of brief, wonderful EPs, and this is historically where bands stumble. Bands that sound fresh in small exposures often have a hard time sustaining that intrigue over greater lengths. Just look at Voxtrot, one of the true casualties of the Myspace era. People loved their EPs, but whatever goodwill they’d accrued evaporated the moment they released a full length. The phenomenon isn’t just limited to music; appetizers are usually more memorable than full courses. We live in a small-plate society.
Like many of their peers on Gloss Records, Milwaukee’s great prestige label of the moment, NO/NO understand this better than most. Sound and Light is twice as generous as its predecessors, but the band hasn’t lost the concision and singles-first mindset that made those EPs so addictive. And because the band continues to introduce new shadings to their hybrid of vaguely ’80-ish synth-pop and similarly ’80s-ish guitar-pop, the record still feels more like a tantalizing tease than a full reveal. In the span of three songs, the band springs from a bottom-heavy “Hearts of Glass” groove (“Television”) to an imagined Molly Ringwald prom dance (“Don’t Remind Me”) and then a Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me-style scorcher (“Bad Habits”). Then tucked away in the record's final stretch, there’s the Spiral Stairs-esque “Two-Lane Blacktop,” the closest the record comes to a straight-up indie-rock song.
That’s a lot of variety on a short record. No sound sticks around long enough to show its hand. The only common threads are some shared instruments, some shared voices and an overarching sense of slithery sensuality (NO/NO are among a handful of Milwaukee bands making music that’s unabashedly sexy, something the city’s scene had rarely even attempted in the past). Sound and Light is every bit as personable and infectious as the EPs that preceded it. And like those efforts, it’s savvy enough to leave you wanting more.
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Stream the record below, via the band's Bandcamp page.
