Following on their 2010 debut, Ghost Blonde, the Montreal noise-pop band returns with a five-song EP that finds them changing up their style from one track to the next.
Negaverse marks an evolution from Ghost Blonde, though not in ways you'd necessarily expect. In concert, that album's hazy-headed distort-pop was given a muscular makeover worthy of SST-era Dinosaur Jr. Negaverse, however, deemphasizes the band's live presence by highlighting both the intimacy and intricacy of their songcraft; this is a record that feels demo-quality crude yet sonically dense and deliberate at the same time.
Opener "Junior" provides a logical leap-off from Ghost Blonde, its airy melody and wordless harmonies hitched to a double-time drum stomp that, thanks to the unyielding corrosiveness of Jasamine White-Gluz and Laura Lloyd's guitars, still feels like it's moving in slow motion. But even when working within Negaverse's downsized dimensions, No Joy seem eager to reveal that there's more to their music than a simple noise/pop dichotomy: "Shame Cave" is another trash-can-thwacking Mary Chained rave-up, but one where the drums drop out in its final minute, transforming the song's reverberating guitar line and backing harmonies into a slow-dissolving swirl; "Smiley Face" takes a good half of its 3:35 runtime pulling back the slingshot before unleashing a space-bound robo-cow-punk rampage. And if Negaverse's proudly washed-out sound still provides little clue as to what White-Gluz is going on about, the enchantingly whispered "Yang Sanpanku" still manages to sculpt a dramatic arc out of what at first seems like a monolithic, buzz-killing drone; it's a song that sounds anthemic even if it lacks the basic lyrical intelligibility required of a proper anthem. Packing five songs into 15 minutes, Negaverse goes by in a blur-- but what impresses most is its sense of patience. - Pitchfork Music Review