No Enemy! is a punk band from Chicago (I know, it's so weird that they aren't hip hop or something Pete Wentz is involved with). They remind me a lot of The Sandwiches. I guess this means they somewhat remind me of Nofx? I think that's something that can be said. They can mostly be simply chalked up as a pretty good punk band, but they definitely have some elements of pop-punk in there occasionally, which keeps it interesting. I don't know much about them, because they're too young to even properly research. What I do know is that their new Unwind EP can be downloaded for free off of their bandcamp, so none of us have an excuse not to try them out.
The album kicks off with "Open Your Eyes", which boasts the standard pop punk structured lead parts. They're as fast as they need to be for this quick song, and barely as intricate as necessay to be interesting at the very least. The lead vocalist's vocals are similar to those of Scotty Sandwich combined with like Ryan from OWTH. They feel like they have a bit of a pop punk style to them, despite the straight up gruffness they possess. The instrumentals are pretty straight forward and nothing out of the ordinary. Each member is competent with his part, and nothing sounds underdone.
The style doesn't change up much or the next song, but we hear some variation in performance for the third track "Big Hands". This song is slow, well not really. It's slow for this band, is what I mean. Kind of like how all the Ramones songs were considered fast, but only compared to everything going on at the time. But compared to bands like this, the Ramones are like Peter Framton or something. "Dispose Me" introduces a new vocalist to the mix, and this guy sounds like Mikey Erg combined with Fat Mike. It's kind of cool, dude. This song is pretty much straight up pop-punk. It's catchy, it's not too original, but it sounds cool as a cucumber (really, Idle?).
I just ate a peanutbutter cereal bar, and I think my throat hates me for it for some reason...so do my teeth. People need to quit telling me to have sweet dreams because my teeth hurt like fuck whenever I wake up. Stupid Kentucky teeth.
"I'd Rather Be Dumb" has some like hard rock styled leads, and lyrics that remind me of Operation Ivy..."Gonna find you! Gonna find you!" There's like a guitar solo in here, and I think it serves just to make you think you're listening to a different genre all of a sudden. I'm not fooled, No Enemy! You can't fool me twice!
The cool Erg sounds vocalist comes back to sing "It Means Nothing to Me", which is a cunning ruse disguised as a song. They're trying to fool me into thinking they're The Vandals. But, I'm an excellent musical sleuth, and I've determined that they're still No Enemy! and are just pretty varied with their sound and kind of rock my socks. I don't mean they rock my socks as in they've worn pairs of my socks and looked good in them, I mean it in the hyperbolic way to mean they're pretty boss at their tunes. I don't mean that in an uppermanagement way; I'm just incapable of avoiding dumb slang or hyperbole. Fuck it!
The album leaves us after the song "You're Dead", which is a short little diddy featuring the original lead vocalist and some woahs and some ohs. There's more ohs than there are in that part of every episode of Arrested Development where you see how the plots all fall together and everything starts to make sense in a humorous way. Okay, maybe not THAT many ohs. But you either get the picture, or you don't. But anyway, you can download Unwind from No Enemy's bandcamp page, where you can also find their other album Life Waster, which is also pretty sweet. Don't blame me if you don't like them...but do blame me if you do.
-Idle
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