No Age + Telepathe + Abe Vigoda

Description
River to River Festival. Get to thrash! No Age’s new Sub Pop debut, Nouns, both revels in and expands upon the scuzzed-out, small-amp feel of the duo’s first album. The sweltering “Sleeper Hold” acts as a microcosm of the whole album, balancing a murky DIY aesthetic with speedy yet disciplined rhythms. Recent live appearances by Brooklyn’s Telepathe have been shaky, but the band’s intriguing new Web demos—which evoke an ethereal-psych outfit taking on clubby R&B—give us hope. Skeleton is Abe Vigoda’s third album, yet it feels more youthful than most debut singles. The group resembles a strange child whose IQ may be in the 70s—or the 140s. One minute, the musicians’ competence seems highly questionable; the next, they have smuggled exotic guitars and rhythmic madness into a murky punk song.