Wrong

Released

In the mid-to-late-’80s, at a time when most of the canonical prog bands had embraced a poppy, synth-heavy sound, British Columbia trio NoMeansNo honed a new form of progressive rock that married the compositional ambition of the old school to the whiplash fury of hardcore. On their fourth LP, Wrong, the trio of brothers Rob and John Wright and guitarist Andy Kerr sometimes come off like a hyper-evolved Minutemen, adding metallic bulk and compositional grandeur to the whimsical art-punk of their bygone contemporaries. There’s an enormous amount of detail packed into these breathlessly intense songs (the noise-jazz interlude in “Tired of Waiting,” the operatic harmonies on “The End of All Things,” the quizzical minimalist guitar break in “Two Lips, Two Lungs and One Tongue”). This is the kind of album that blows up barriers separating supposedly discrete forms of rock, reminding listeners and fellow musicians alike that the essence of punk rock is ignoring any and all received ideas about said essence.  

Hank Shteamer