Album Review: NO - El Prado

It may just be the nature of gloom-rock, but LA-based NO sound older than they are, their debut like that newcomer eating lunch with the old-hands – baritone-voiced and assured, like The National's Canadian rock cousins, brooding but in an arena-sensible style.

Standout track Monday actually channels New Order, like some three-minute Mancunian time-warp. Other tracks, however, tend to drag on and lose that sense of propulsion – the rewards are there, but only for the diligent. Textured and complex, in its flagging middle stretches, the album too easily resembles an endless tunnel of staccato bass plucks.