Wondering what’s this weird album title about? Well, you have to have a passing knowledge of Oasis to understand that, uhm, joke. Happily enough (or maybe unfortunately, who knows?) NO ANCHOR’s music doesn’t have anything in common with these Brit-Pop heavy weights. Not even the instrumentation. At least as far as I can tell NO ANCHOR use drums, vocals, bass(es). No guitars, but heavily distorted bass. In so doing, and of course because of the music they play, they are reminiscent of Sleep successors Om. Sounds good? Well it pretty f***g sure does to me.
Even though NO ANCHOR describe themselves as a Doom/Sludge band, their music differs from the typical (and often strained) formular of that genre. Due to this, these Australians manage to remain highly interesting and exciting throughout the 53 minutes of Real Pain Supernova. Besides the typical commandments of this section of heavy music, namely Black Sabbath, Melvins or Sunn O))), there are huge influences by Post Rock and Post Hardcore heroes like The Jesus Lizard, Shellac and Fugazi. Especially the latter made a big dent in NO ANCHOR’s music, if you ask me. Grooving, dancable basslines, emotional and gripping vocals and super tight, pointed drumming won’t let you off the hook. A healthy dose of noise and feedback delivers the needed portion of fucked up’ness.
Wanna try some?
Dead Pony by No Anchor
So all in all Real Pain Supernova is a grooving, just very cool record that bridges the gap between lava-like Doom and Post Hardcore in its best sense. And this is really something quite unique, at least I haven’t heard anything comparable until now.
The album will be available as 2xLP from the band’s website. The vinyl version was mastered by Mell Dettmer (Boris, Earth and Sunn O)))). A free/donation digital version of the album will be available online on the 9th of May 2011. NO ANCHOR’s doing so many things right it’s really unbelievable.
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