Thrilled to finally have this on the shelves, the final and long-forgotten fourth album from one of my favorite Marylabd bands of all time. My skull inverted the first time that I heard these guys, which would have to have been their notorious Touch & Go album Tritonian Nash-Vegas Polyester Complex from 1986. I had no idea what I was getting into when I borrowed a dubbed tape of Tritonian from one of my skinhead pals down the street, I just knew that this band was really annoying the hardcore crowd for some reason. As a devotee of musical irritation, I couldn't wait to hear 'em , but I was honestly thrown into a state of confusion when that album kicked off. Having not yet fallen down the rabbitholes of noise rock and experimental music to any great degree, the shambling, sludgy, almost Dada-istic approach to punk that I heard was beyond illuminating.

Zappa

A vintage-sounding spoken introduction opens the album, setting a mild and welcoming mood. And then the band detonates the bonkers ska-punk of "Fuzzy Dice", their signature absurdist lyrics sounding even more whack as they are delivered over a tight rhythmic skank-a-thon with brass horns blasring at full power, spiked with some wild guitar soloing and killer bass runs. Then it runs into "Sorry I Asked", a maudlin soft-rock melody unfolding into chorus-rich guitars, some kind of mutant 80's style jangle pop, but with these sinister discordant skronk breaks constantly rattling the weirdly pretty verses and instrumental passages. The No Trend guys deliver fantastic musicianship with all of these sounds, and Cliff Ontego's sneering vocals are present everywhere. This crazed mashup of ska, doo-wop, R&B, funk, and melodic rock persists through the rest of the album (alternating between stuff that sounds like Dream Academy, or Fishbone, or Top 40 soul), with these unexpected bursts of hardcore tempos and bone-scraping noise rock crashing into the songs left and right. The soulful backup vocals and staccato hooks on "Spank Me (With Your Love Monkey, Baby)" are played with genuine prowess amd energy, and the whole sound just gets weirder and weirder as you move thropugh the rest of More; I can see why Touch & Go were so stymied by what they heard here, with much of the album coming off as so insanely radio-friendly, even as that abrasive, almost threatening presence undulates just below the surface. At the same time, to my ears this sounds like a natural progression from No Trend's previous album, pushing the stylistic schizophrenia and pop hooks to new heights but infecting these songs with a subtle, soured aggression that makes the other two songs ("Last On Right, Second Row" and "Bel-Pre Declining") feel like things could go horrrifyingly awry at any moment. It's awesome.

And then after all of that, they lead you by the nose into the eighteen minute closer "No Hopus Opus", which at first has a shimmering drone-rock sound, huge backing choruses and gleaming guitars folding together in an imposing , menacing wash of sound. Only to abruptly break into a cacophonous punk rock charge, fast paced drumming and randon music notes blurring into a confusional chaos. And thus it mutates, as No Trend treat this epic like something out of a proggy rock opera, slipping back into that scintillating guitar pop, then strange psychedelic pieces, then more of that ska-like sound but bent into weirder shapes now, all with Ontego dropping hilarious and nonsensical lyrics that are part of a larger narrative. It's all beautifully put together, opening into bizarre acid-drenched vistas of improvisation playing, everything soaked in echo and delay, the whole middle part twisting into a somewhat spooky sounding freeform jam, a few sudden flashes almost resembling Magma, then evolving into a killer fast-paced Naked City-esque improv-punk freakout with all horns blazing. Huge rhythmic grooves appear alongside shattered hardcore riffs, and the band shapes it all into a catchy melody that runs out the song.

If this had been released in the early 90s, i think it would have had a completely different trajectory.

The detailed essay from Jack Rabid in the booklet is a great read, going into detail about the Touch & Go fallout, as are the unreleased archive photos.