You never get a straight-up song, or one that follows an expected trajectory. I kept thinking about broken glass when first listening to NO, and the effect is a bit like a house of mirrors. The implosion bleeds into 'Regain/Rejoin', a track led by Aaron Turner's gruff shouts and a catchy guitar part that that grows increasingly anthemic as the song around it dissolves. It's a bit like Christian Fennesz (and then Steve Reich) having his way with Metal Machine Music. The first proper song, the eight-minute 'Common Species', feels like a more typical sludge anthem until it degrades into shards of feedback and howling that eventually morphs into clusters of a gentler, sparkling clatter. NO opens with two minutes of cavernous, drafty bass thumping and drone as part of a song called 'Grand Inversion', a track that melds static, high-pitched white noise, and piped synthesizer into a kind of anti-introduction. Their 'clarion call for those who are no longer willing to say yes to that which corrodes life, mind, heart, and soul,' is individualistic, fucked up, and unrelentingly apocalyptic while remaining life-affirming. In that sense, and others, OMG feel more like a collective than the usual touring band (though tour they do). It's something, one might suppose, that they just wanted to do. Fitting for such a long gestation, we're told it's 'the cumulative response to a lifetime of saying 'yes,' when just the opposite should have been said instead.' NO wasn't guided by an album cycle, and these guys are very busy with their other projects. NO is OMG's fifth album, the first in eight years. Everyone screams or adds clean or distorted vocals, and there's also no shortage of electronics, pedals, unnamed noisemakers, and other 'instruments' (sheet metal, toilets, shoes). They're joined by Caleb Scofield ( Cave In, Zozobra) on bass and Nate Newton ( Converge, Doomriders) on guitar. Co-founders Aaron Turner ( Isis, Mamiffer, Split Cranium) and Santos Montano handle vocals/guitars and drums, respectively. Instead, think of the band as longtime friends who happen to be members of other groups, because that's what lifers do.

(Unlike Harvey Milk, they could still use some Ritalin.) You might be tempted to call OMG a 'super group,' but that's a ridiculous term in 2012, especially in the context of underground music.

Though, on average, younger than the guys in Harvey Milk, Old Man Gloom are also made up of dudes starting to find gray in their beards.

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