All Roads Lead to Ausfahrt

Canadian legends NoMeansNo are back... Continuing in their usual array interesting, intense riff laden songs which are sometimes funny, aggressive and epic, but always NoMeansNo. And golly is it good. It's damn good.

There are no real surprises on this album, mainly because it is extremely hard to know what to expect from NoMeansNo apart from NoMeansNo. There are the usual elements of the songs, riffs and lyrics which are staples of what NoMeansNo are; the brilliantly interplaying, intense, detailed drums and bass, the witty, sometimes insightful and poignant, sometimes just funny and silly, lyrics. There is no worrying about that - that was always going to be there. But the guitar playing of Tom Holliston seems to take on a slightly different dimension to the last LP I heard of theirs. Sometimes, the guitar seems to be on top of the songs, doing similar things that Larry LaLonde of Primus does. Where the drums, bass and vocals are the core, the guitar compliments it all and, what seems to be a variety of guitar effects, help make the songs what they are and helps the band evolve a bit more...

It would be wrong to review a NoMeansNo album and not mention the lyrics. In I See A Mansion In The Sky, the verse takes the vocal rhythm from the tongue twister 'How Much Wood Could a Wood Chuck ...' They elaborate upon the natural quizzical-ness of the tongue twister to query about postmen, young bucks and more. A lot of the epicness of the songs is added to by the lyrics. Heaven Is The Dust Beneath My Shoes fits the music perfectly, as does Faith, In Her Eyes and 'Til I Die. I've always wondered if the lyrics or the music comes first to them, neither suffer for the sake of the other.

This is another NoMeansNo album, full of great riffs, epic songs, brilliant vocal melodies and harmonies and brilliant lyrics. It does contain the odd more poppy song but this one seems is more epic and contains a lot of grandeur in both individual moments and songs. For me, this album was not instant but certainly had me putting it on and playing it over and over again. This is NoMeansNo. They are brilliant.
-punknews.org