Cool? Cool.
Cool Cool by Electric NoNo (2018) ★★★½
What’s that? Are those the dulcet tones of the Cortese Brothers, Jared y Dominic, of Electric NoNo fame?
Nay, it can’t be, I say! For they released a collection of music naught but 18 months (or thereabouts ago). And everyone knows that it takes years and years and years and years for Electric NoNo to release new musics.
But my ears do not deceive me, nor do mine eyes: Electric NoNo have released two sets of music in two consecutive calendar years! I do declare: It’s a miracle there.
Yes, it’s true: here are six more songs of rock’n’roll goodness for us to… wait, only six songs? You mean this is just another EP, not a full-length album!
GOSH DANGIT ELECTRIC NONO! Why you gotta play me like that!?
Seriously, though, if your main complaint about a band is that they don’t release enough awesome music, then that’s pretty durned good.
Cool Cool pivots significantly from their previous release, Rain City Blue. Rain City Blue was a much spacier, more complicated EP. Cool Cool kind of strips all of that back so it’s just pure, fuzzed-up rock. And it makes sense; Rain City Blue was produced by the equally spacey and etherial Julia Massey, whereas Cool Cool was produced by Adam Prairie of the Hoot Hoots. Therefore it sounds much more like the Hoot Hoots than it does Julia Massey.
And it’s really very good rock. A standout is “Chased by Crows,” which Jared and Dom have been playing live for YEARS, so it’s nice to finally have a permanent record of it:
Strangely, the opening song of the album is Rain City Blue, which is the name of a different album. (??)
The finale, “Dreary Place,” is also a very good down-tempo ballad, which repeats just a single verse a few times. Anyone who lives in the Pacific Northwest will get a kick out of it.
The rest of the four songs are also very good, but none of them have the stand-out quality that, say, “Holiday” or “40 Foot Tall” (songs from Electric NoNo’s previous two EPs) have.
A minor quibble I have about Cool Cool is that (for my personal tastes) the guitars are mixed too quietly into the final mix. When you see Electric NoNo live, Jared’s guitar is right there in your freakin’ face. It’s like a second vocalist. But in Cool Cool there are some times where you have Jared singing right in your face and Dom banging the drums right behind him, but then it sounds like the guitar is being played by someone in the next room over. Maybe it got overproduced and washed out a little? I dunno, I ain’t no engineer or nuttin’.
So to conclude: too few songs, too-quiet guitar. Otherwise: excellent. Here’s the whole album to partake and enjoy:
Seriously, guys, you’ve been a band for about like years and you’ve only put out TWO full-length albums! C’mon, we’re starvin’ over here!
Categories: Music, Music Reviews, My Famous Friends, Reviews.
