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It's rare for me to be disappointed with a NNCK release but, man, I'm not really feelin' Nine For Victor. I think I know why: The album was recorded 'live' at the 2005 Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville (FIMAV in brevity-intensive settings) and someone seems to have supplied a piano. A really nice sounding piano. The frictionless tones of the instrument sound completely disconcerting against the more archetypical NNCK weirdo noises and shit. I'm sure the band could've amalgamated such an awesome new acquisition really well with a bit more time and thought but "Pylorus In Response"? Half a decade of the same two or three notes being jiggled really fast with some distant percussion. Other times the piano seems randomly thrust between the other instruments to distract. But, really, the keys? A trifle. The album is definitely one of, if not the, highest fidelity recording NNCK has released so far. So it's got that going for it. But the album is pretty obviously highly edited. And that's the true problem here, I'm thinkin'. There are only a few tracks here that reach towards anything you could call long yet even those are still pretty truncated by NNCK standards. The rest are 2 or 3 minute snippets; blinks for a discography steeped in side-long tracks. The thing with NNCK, though, is that the songs extended to those lengths out of necessity; not for fun. By shortening the songs the band has removed nearly all dynamics from the album. We're presented with nine distinct but static vignettes. The album's title is deathly accurate. Once an idea is established on a track (usually very quickly), it persists for the rest of the song. Not to say there's no merit here. This is still my beloved NNCK after all and the longer tracks grant landscape to loiter. "Brain Soaked Hide", other than having a pretty rad title, is both the highlight and most accessible thing here. Sans Michiko's warbly vocals near the beginning, the tune is pretty straight ahead psych-rock sked. The band finds the groove and sticks to it but the orbital instruments add interest and variation. Overall, it's a bit underwhelming (especially after I'd heard faint roars of 'definitive') but, hey, Nine For Victor is still an album by one of the most interesting bands going.

The No-Neck Blues Band at Amazon & Insound