No Life For Me (Red Vinyl)

"On the surface, the quasi-surprise teaming of Cloud Nothings and Wavves seems like the indie-punk version of the classic Loner Weirdo and Crowd-Pleasing Hitmaker archetype pair - a fixture of great pop partnership since at least Lennon and McCartney, right up to Kanye and Jigga. The distance between respective frontmen Dylan Baldi and Nathan Williams isn't really that sizable, though: The memory-attacker started his career with a couple LPs worth of sweetly sentimental lo-fi power-pop, while the King of the Beach has become neurotic enough to name his latest album (and its nervy title-track centerpiece) Afraid of Heights. On the sneak-released collaborative mini No Life for Me, the pair find easy common ground in chiming garage-punk psychoanalysis. (Or, as the immortal Mena Suvari once chose to inaccurately describe Everclear, "Self-loathing complaint rock that you can dance to.").

Though the project has been in the works since well over a year ago, the nine-track, 21-minute set has the charmingly tossed-off feel of a mixtape - hip-hop or C90. Songs start and end at their leisure, building and breaking unpredictably. "Nervous" leads on a repeated two-line chant, a synth twinkle, and an early Fugazi bass rumble; it gets through one verse and one chorus with a Mascisian guitar riff before running out of gas almost immediately after. "No Life For Me" crashes in with a distorted guitar intro (nearly) swiped from Rush's "Working Man," explodes into gorgeous pop-punk harmonizing, with a Sonic Youth guitar breakdown or two on the way to its cacophonous finish. It's tense throughout, but it's also endearingly frisky, and the poppiest moments have a tendency of landing at just the right time to stave off any potential noise-rock monotony." - Spin 7/10