All right. Here's a band I never thought I’d listen to again. I’d deleted Q and Not U's 2000 debut No Kill No Beep Beep X years ago because I thought they were nothing more than a samey, generic post-punk band with irritating vocals. But when Kevin played me one of their songs on our show, I heard something I didn’t here the first time around. Maybe it was my discontent with all of my music up to that point, or maybe it was having someone with good taste being invested in something I was being opened up to, but whatever it was, something clicked.The first thing that struck me about No Kill No Beep Beep, which was produced by Minor Threat and Fugazi frontman/hardcore legend Ian MacKaye, was its constant unpredictability. I could say it was the album’s constant motion that instantly grabbed me, but so many albums move in ways in which one can predict the lyrics that finish a couplet, accurately hum the rest of a melody which one hasn’t even heard yet, or guess where the next verse or chorus jumps in. A prime example of No Kill No Beep Beep’s unpredictability is the festering "Kiss Distinctly American." The whole underlying riff feels like it's building to a crescendo and ready to explode at any minute, but the song quickly defuses just as it’s about to reach its climax. Listening to this song is like getting musical blue balls, except in this case, that’s a good thing.
Slicing, jagged guitars and pulse-pounding rhythms infest No Kill No Beep Beep. Songs like "Nine Things Everybody Knows" and particularly "Little Sparkee" recall post-hardcore outfits like Les Savy Fav with their unexpected yelps and cries. No Kill No Beep Beep shares other similarities with Les Savy Fav including killer drum-work, pronounced bass, and solid hooks which beg listeners to move their feet. While Q and Not U leans more towards dance-punk than Les Savy Fav, Q and Not U possesses much of the same energy and spirit that many other hardcore, post-punk favorites have embodied over the years.
With hardly any rest between songs or any interludes within songs, except for perhaps "The More I Get, the More I Want" and closer "Sleeping the Terror Code," there isn’t a dull moment on this album. And speaking of songs defusing, that’s exactly how "Sleeping the Terror Code" closes the album. Despite No Kill No Beep Beep’s scarcity of slow moments, "Terror Code"'s pace fits perfectly and appropriately as the last piece of the sonic puzzle, and the album feels in no way stunted because of the placement of this last particular track.
Another nice, although admittedly minor, detail of the album is the song titles. They're unconventional but not to the point of being irritating, stupid or unconventional for the sake of being unconventional (see The Flaming Lips, Sufjan Stevens, and boatloads of post-rock outfits). On the flip-side, lately, I've been finding that so many bands (too many bands) have the most generic names for everything. Wilco's Wilco (the Album) may be one of the worst recent offenders, but that's a great album which I will discuss in another review.
Like I said, No Kill No Beep Beep’s a pretty unpredictable album. You can't follow along with any of the lines the first time you listen through it. You can't listen and say, "Okay, they're going to rhyme this word with that word" and sing along. Until you get a hold of the songs, you’ll find yourself discovering new twists and turns with every listen. And even after you catch onto all of the motions, as people can fall in love with a Beat Happening or early Mountain Goats record (artists and records that are known for their repetitiveness), listeners can find themselves enjoying No Kill No Beep Beep like any other album in their collection.
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