Album Review: No Broadcast - No Broadcast (2014)

This one came recommended by a couple of local bloggers and it’s a “name your price” download on Bandcamp, so I figured what’s to lose?

No Broadcast is a hard rocking Christchurch-based three-piece and this self-titled debut album was released digitally a few months back. The band has been together in one form or another for the best part of a decade, calling itself Anthesiac for a few years – releasing an EP titled ‘Null And Void’ under that moniker back in 2011 – before a name change to No Broadcast. An EP called ‘1736’ followed in 2013, and earlier this year a second EP, ‘Live at the Dux’, showcased the band performing live in Christchurch.

Finally getting around to a full length release, the Bandcamp blurb notes that the album was “recorded throughout the year of 2012 in Josh's garage and house” ...

The fact that the band has honed its craft with regular gigs and live performances over a prolonged period probably explains why the album itself immediately comes across as very assured for a debut release. These guys are tight, and the album feels like the culmination of many years worth of hard work.

Whatever else it is, No Broadcast is a solid set of very heavy tunes – not metal, but atmospheric hard rock, brooding and foreboding at times, with prog rock influences also at play. Classic rock touchstones abound, and the album seems to get progressively heavier, relentlessly building to the climax of the eight-minute-plus closer ‘Driven’.

Other highlights here are the opener ‘Reset The Sun’, plus ‘Realise’, which I think was an advance single, and the mid-album two-part ‘Drone’, with part two being particularly impressive in its menacing Mogwai-esque approach.

Josh Braden’s vocal, guitar playing, and production is strong throughout, while rhythm pairing Sam Hood (bass) and Chris Self (drums) lay an unyielding foundation, and I’m struggling to recall the last time I heard this much of a racket from a three piece.

Harder rock forms aren’t usually my bag ...well, not post-millennium hard rock forms anyway ... but this was well worth the trouble of the download and it took me a little by surprise. You really should grab a copy from the band’s Bandcamp page and decide for yourself.

 

No Broadcast on Bandcamp here

 

Here's 'Reset The Sun' ...