Man, I hear a lotta folks comparing these dudes to the Foo Fighters, and I just don’t see it (or hear it, as it were). I guess the Foos are the only connection most people have to what we woulda called “alternative” music back in the ‘90s. For my money, NOTR sound a heckuva lot like Shudder To Think, if Shudder To Think rocked a lot harder, made way better use of dynamics, and laid off the movie soundtrack crap. Head honcho Chris Baratono describes Narc Out The Reds as “paranoid pop,” and while I’d quibble with the “pop” designation (this is quite clearly “rock” music, and yeah, there is a big difference, regardless of how melodic said rock may be), the vocals can certainly sound unbalanced (in a good way!). They occasionally remind me of long lost ‘90s band Ruth Ruth, who had similarly paranoid-sounding vocal stylings. I’m diggin’ this two-song 7” quite a bit more than their first EP (Last year’s ...Are on theRun, also on GTG records) and I think you can attribute that one hundred percent to the fact that this is an actual band recording, and not a studio creation like the last one. Baratono snagged himself a hell of a rhythm section (they cut their teeth in a thrash band together) and it really shows on these two songs. They lay down a nice tight bed for the songs to sit on and it makes all the difference. I believe they also recorded these tunes essentially live to tape, which is the way the good lord intended it to be. If you dig catchy rock and roll tunes with a lotta twists and turns to ‘em, then you oughta check out Narc Out The Reds.
–Ryan Horky (Good Time Gang)