No Age

No Age get a lot done with a little. The sunbaked SoCal twosome’s massive sound—an amalgam of the hardcore punk roots of their home city of L.A., sweltering skyward-looking shoegaze and messy SST-style indie—coaxes grisly chunks  ofmelody from all corners, pummeling and soaring and generally just making far more racket than you’d expect from a pair of unassuming vegan skater types. In just a few years, through no shortage of hard work, they’ve established themselves among the premier underground acts going. Live, they’re a force to be reckoned with.

Rising from the ashes of hardcore trio Wives nearly half a decade ago, No Age quietly (well, maybe not quietly) built a rep as the band to watch out of Los Angeles’ fertile noise-punk scene, serving as unofficial mascots for the creative oasis The Smell. In 2007, they issued five limited-edition vinyl-only singles in a day, rearranged and truncated for their breakthrough kinda-sorta-debut Weirdo Rippers. Nouns, their first proper full length, followed on Sub Pop, expanding and deepening their already gigantic sound into strange and ever-noisier new corners. In 2009, they released the Losing Feeling EP, which drew them back towards their punk roots without sacrificing the windtunnel sound that's become their trademark. Another Sub Pop full length is forthcoming this year.

All the while, they’ve hung as close as can be to the road, earning a rep as not only a stellar studio band but an absolutely killer live act, fierce and fearless and capable of goosing all sorts of sounds from their relatively modest means. Come for the music, stay for the derring-do: If guitarist Randy Randall doesn’t climb up on something stupid, it’s simply not a No Age show. —Paul Thompson