No Devotion – Permanence

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No Devotion PermanenceIt is probably fair to call No Devotion a supergroup. The band consists of Geoff Rickly, the Brooklyn-based former Thursday frontman, the former musical base of Welsh rock band Lostprophets and, the most recent addition, Matt Tong, the former Bloc Party drummer.

When their debut single Stay was released last year, it came out of nowhere and sounded nothing like Thursday or Lostprophets. A synths ladden pop anthem with stomping beats, it pays homage to 80s power pop and post punk rather than either bands’ emo rock background. Stay made it onto their debut album, Permanence, and marks one of its may highlights.

The album opener Break is a many-layered wall of sound that took me several approaches to fully appreciate it. The second track, Permanent Sunlight, exhibits No Devotion’s love for bands such as New Order and The Cure but the album is so much more than a rehash of 80s post punk. With its distorted guitars and angsty vocals, I Want To Be Your God could be straight from a The Manic Street Preachers record. The track is followed by Death Rattle, an instrumental that is everything but what you’d expect from the title. It’s a welcome break before the power ballad 10.000 Summers, a song I listened to for hours on end on a lengthy bus journey. Recent single Addition is a stadium sized shoegaze anthem that calls for sing alongs and raised hands. Night Drive and Grand Central with their 6 minutes run time each are the most experimental tracks on the record showing off how many-facetted this collaboration really is.

Permanence is the product of a band that is here to stay and is an outstanding collaborative effort. The album is out internationally on September 25th on Collect Records and can be streamed in its entirety via the player below.

Track list:

1. Break
2. Permanent Sunlight
3. Eyeshadow
4. Why Can’t I Be With You?
5. I Wanna Be Your God
6. Death Rattle
7. 10,000 Summers
8. Night Drive
9. Stay
10. Addition
11. Grand Central

Deborah Jacobs

Music blogger by night, SEO by day. Started Indie is not a Genre in 2011, will always prefer live music over recordings and intimate pub gigs over arena shows.

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