by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)
There are plenty of long running and eclectic DIY punk bands out there, but there are few as eclectic and as long running as New York’s No One and the Somebodies. Celebrating their 20th (!!) year making music together, the quartet of Yankou brothers (Brian, Steve, Kevin, and Bobby Yankou) are making the most of it with the release of their latest album, Ceasefire Violations, due out November 8th via Jam Eater Records (Robot Princess, Delanor, Forget This). The record marks their first new release since 2015’s Chips For Dinner split LP with Palberta, but as the six year draught ends, it becomes immediately clear that Ceasefire Violations was worth the wait.
While the album’s first single “Break It Down” had a garage punk jangle, it wouldn’t be a NOATS record without shifting dynamics and “David Hyde Pierce” is an all out assault of damaged art rock and hardcore influences. The song brings together carnival prog and socio-political aggression to create something detached and disorienting in structure but thoroughly focused in its agitation. While combining a brute menace and a winking zaniness (that never comes across cartoonish), it’s a blast at well-minded protests and would-be activists that want a better future but don’t want to consider all it truly entails to make that happen, to enact real change. What it has to do with David Hyde Pierce is beyond me, but that doesn’t matter.