The Echo Park band which goes under the simple and ungoogle-able name of ‘No’, is starting to create some buzz around Los Angeles,and I got to see them at the Satellite on Wednesday night. For an early set, it was already very packed, and frontman Bradley Hanan Carter was engaging the audience, asking them to get closer, and reminding everyone that the band was offering their first released EP for free on their website (http://nomusicfor.me).
But he was not the only engaging thing, the music produced by the five-piece ensemble was definitively appealing and upbeat, reminding me different things at the same time with its bright vocal harmonies, twanging guitars and Carter’s deep baritone. His very noticeable voice, close to that of Crash Test Dummies’ Brad Roberts (if anyone can remember about him), was indeed one of the most remarkable aspect of their ballads populated by a lot of guitars, synth, and uplifting sing-along choruses, which were just a notch below the bombastic level of some other bands, but were not timid in ooh-ooh-oohs, sung in three-part harmonies.
The songs were catchy, several had that ascending-anthem component, instantaneously familiar and activating your musical memory,… you know that feeling, a riff comes up and you get the impression to have it stored somewhere in your brain, your head is spinning, but then the drums kick up orthe melody takes another turn, and you think your first impression was not quite exactly the right one. Oh well, on their bio, it reads they are the ‘remnants of odes to Bill Callahan, The National, and Arcade Fire’, some big names that I could totally see as their main influences, as No’s music had this sort of romantic urgency,alternating between despair and inspiring hope that people have when everything falls apart.
No, which consists of Bradley Hanan Carter, Sean Daniel Stentz, Joseph Sumner, Reese Richardson, and Mike Walker, will have a free Monday residency in March at the Echo, and the LAWeekly has already predicted huge things for the band in 2012. It would not be surprising seeing the six little epic numbers they were able to fit in their EP, entitled ‘Don’t Worry, You’ll Be Here Forever’,… could this title be the optimistic answer to Mogwai’s ‘Hardcore will never die, but you will’?