Exactly seven weeks passed between me getting Q and Not U's second album, Different Damage, and going back into Banquet to pick up their debut. I never bought (or heard) their third album, but that's mostly because Banquet never had it in stock (although that's probably because it didn't get reissued in 2009 when the other two did, so it's hardly Banquet's fault); I'd buy it if I saw it for sure.
Clicking on various links on Discogs just now revealed two things - I do have a song from their third album on a sampler cd, and that cd long pre-dates me stumbling upon their albums in Banquet in 2012, so I had heard what they sounded like before I bought Different Damage (contrary to what I wrote four years ago). However, that cd was a great but rambling sampler cd that came free with a copy of Rock Sound in 2004 - in fact, it had two free cds that month - the usual Music With Attitude cd and a 20-track compilation of songs released by Southern Records (called Music With Latitude). My main memory was a drone song about a quarter of the way through which was my first introduction into drone, and not what I was after at the time. I didn't remember getting much from it at the time. About two years later, I'd hear the William Elliott Whitmore song again on a mixtape from Hugh, and a long journey into his music began there. Clearly there's a theme here, and that theme is that I should have paid more attention to that free cd. I played it again a few years ago on a train back from London (I'd been to gig at Wembley Arena, and it caught my eye as I scrolled through my iPod, and I had a good listen whilst waiting for the train). As it happened, the regular Rock Sound cd was one of the less impressive ones I got (although I should probably play that again too), but did finish with an incredible song by a band called Threemovements whose cd I immediately ordered online. They went on to achieve basically nothing, but some years later I saw the singer's new band, EastStrikeWest (not a fan of spaces, that guy) supporting This Will Destroy You, the same night I also got into Talons. Everything is always more connected than you think.
That paragraph drifted way off-topic, sorry. No Kill No Beep Beep has some great songs - Fever Sleeves is crazy catchy and one of the highlights, Hooray for Humans has gang vocals, which are always a winner, Y Plus White Girl has these frantic, strange guitars, and the opener, A Line in the Sand settles into a huge groove that I wish lasted longer. I usually try not to buy multiple albums by the same band in such short succession, but I'd had some fun with Different Damage, and this was a tenner also, so seemed like a wise purchase. The reason I try to avoid that is because it's easy for the songs to not become very distinct in my mind if you don't give one album time to settle, as was the case here - if you played me songs from either and asked me to tell you which album they're on, I'd struggle.
In recent years, I've not put these albums on so much, but they're fun and I should do more often. Maybe I'll even seek out that third album.
Format: 12", picture sleeve
Tracks: 10
Cost: £10 new
Bought: Banquet Records, Kingston
When: 28/03/12
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: Download code
