No-wave has not yet disappeared, as Sonic Youth’s career defining album, Rather Ripped, showed last year. SY has always held its own, but nary a no-wave band has really reached this apex with the gnawing guitars and unfettered noise of one of NYC’s best. Love of Diagrams yearn to revive this particular brand of punk, but here on the trio’s debut, several potentially excellent songs, “Confrontation,” “Form and Function,” and “Trouble” are done in by lackluster filler. Not that Mosaic isn’t a smart debut; it lacks a spark of individuality that would really send it over the edge and set it apart. The Australian trio was highly lauded at last year’s SXSW festival, but it seems their performance here has become mired in the tired struggles of a band trying to rise to expectations. Seemingly lost throughout the album, meandering through essentially the same songs, LOD make only moderate changes as mood and instrumentation change. Though lacking versatility, the band does possess incredible passion and energy. Like Israel’s Ex-Lion Tamer, Love of Diagrams finds the equilibrium between noise and melody, extinguishing any doubts of no-wave‘s worth, but failing to create anything remarkable from the ashes.
~ Wes Barker
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