Q AND NOT U "NO KILL NO BEEP BEEP"
Dischord, 2000
When I first heard this album way back when, I thought, 'This is what Fugazi SHOULD sound like.' I like Fugazi okay enough, but I can honestly say that this takes their formula -- two interlocking guitars playing unconventional riffs, obscure and vaguely political lyrics, complex energetic strangely-structured songs -- and does something better with it. There's not a single bad song on here, not a single song I skip, and even though I think this album has gotten a decent amount of recognition upon its first release, it seems to have been kind of forgotten by now (correct me if I'm wrong). In fact, I remember when it first came out, more people were excited about the excellent-but-not-quite-as-good Faraquet album that came out at the same time. ANYWAY, this album has one of the best first halfs of a record ever: The odd-guitar-workout "Fever Sleeves", the mixtape staple "Hooray for Humans", and the AMAZING "we Heart Our Hive" are mindblowing. I don't really have much to say. If you like creative guitar-based music, check it out. Though most of you probably have. A few interesting things about Q and Not U. I saw this band either the day after or a few days after their bassist left, and they mainly played new songs, which were okay, but they also played about 4 songs off of this album which were TERRIBLE. No kidding -- there'd either be no bass or just one guitar, and it really showed. I felt bad for them, but it also seemed to carry over to their next two albums. "Different Damage", I think, is a very very mediocre record, maybe even bad. I hated it at the time and only mildly like it now. "Power" was a lot better but still didn't match the, um, power of this record. Another weird thing is that all their albums were released in October every 2 years and each one had a single released right before it. They never broke that tradition, which I find kind of interesting. Also, is it just me or is Ian Mackaye's production EXCELLENT? The production on "No Kill No Beep Beep" is astounding. He should produce more instead of saying "don't smoke cigarettes."