- Following on from their 2011, self-titled debut, Oakland, California quintet No Babies deliver a long awaited sophomore album of heavy, playfully serious and genre-bending punk noise with Someone To Watch Over Me, a baker’s dozen of tracks totaling at just under twenty-five minutes with expectedly few pulled punches along the way.
The record opens to dueling reeds, and the quick pan of jazzy drum brushes that float over an ominous buried bass pulse on DMFB, emerging in the quickly interrupted pulsating introductory riff on the frontend of Hazia. There is a brief union with a jazz-imbued patter of rimshots and sax squealing before being launched forward into the full-on energetic bursts of unified noise that typify No Babies approach. A constant, unchallenged energy with interrupted and fast pounding drums that squeeze nimble fills between tight gaps in the dizzyingly shifting guitar phrases. The first few tracks balance the sound of composed blocks of noise and contrastingly free improvisational breaks, while Luna Nueva Luna Negra and Puzzle Pieces offer some more traditional punk breaks and breakdowns.
The meticulously organised chaos constantly pulls and pushes, musical ideas are quickly substituted for one another while staying conceptually focused. On The Weight, Jasmine Watson sings most directly about the pervasive forces of capitalism, a theme that pervades the conceptual core of the album as it touches on identity, symptoms and systems of oppression and elements of social justice movements. The approach to concept is largely factual and personal, not focused on abstraction or inspiring negativity, but on the personal mobilisation against unseen forces.
Everything sounds immensely clear and precise on the production side of things, the combination of instruments is distinct even amongst the often crushingly heavy dynamics. Some unusual elements like the hard panned guitar shredding that precedes The Grain, The Fruit, The Land, The Blood and Internalised heighten tensions before even starting and stir up ears that are surely feeling fatigued by the preceding intense aural workout.
Interludes are well-timed and pleasantly unexpected. The lo-fi sing along Rabbit Hole is later reprised in a break in Puzzle Pieces and with the jazz-infused interlude of Ice Forms All Around provides a brief release from the generally overwhelming, but painfully addictive bursts of noise. The guitar and saxophone unify on the lead riff of False Binary in a powerful metaphorical union of the two most contrapuntal instruments of the record. Someone To Watch Over Me stands out as a relative epic at over four-minutes long, and draws out No Babies distinct and powerfully textural and dissonant play in movements that deliberately build over a contagious slip and slide bass riff.
Someone To Watch Over Me is an incredibly dense and affecting record, each track is packed to the brim with intensely affecting music that doesn’t shy away from topicality. More than just a great punk album, it feels like an effective appeal and experiment in concise and positive, artistic activism.
- Jaden Gallagher.