No Address - Time Doesn't Notice

I’ve never really been a fan of singing the beat of a song (“dah-dah-dah”); I’ve always thought, “What’s the point? I mean, don’t you have lyrics?” Well, Ben Lauren (vocals for No Address) disagrees with me, and his new CD, Time Doesn’t Notice, is a pretty good argument on his part. Along with his syllabic distortions (“I-yiy-yiy-yiy-yiy,” or what others might call warbling) and the aforementioned melodic repetitions, Ben Lauren makes a living out of riding the hook and occasionally telling a pretty good story. Yes, he seems to acknowledge, the lyrics are pretty generic stuff. But we shouldn’t let words get in the way of love, a subject that indefinable anyway, so let’s just enjoy the ride and not get so damn mellow. Screw the poetry: No Address relishes in the mundane observation of life. (“You’re always too proud/and when your heart starts breaking/a little bit of love is all you need”). When they make exceptions (as in the exceptional “Walk Away”), the basic lyrics become a safety-net chorus for wilder leaps into metaphors like “We coughed our love into the sun/the sea all bent right as we drown.” Maybe it’s the extra guitar (both Phil Moreton and Justin Long) that hits that chord, or maybe it’s just the absolute attention that Randy Lane (drums) and Bill Donaldson (bass) lavish on the beat itself that does it. Maybe it’s that the ordinary, if fired up, is more sustainable and physically tangible to an audience. Or maybe it’s a diversity of musical riffs that manage to stretch something very thin into a tightrope act (between Country and Rock) and then into a trampoline (the more up-tempo and energized acts). Whatever the reason, Time Doesn’t Notice is like the nice fling you have between romances. There’s no strings attached, no heady work to be done on your part, just good times and limited responsibility. [www.no-address.net]