Shy Child Noise Won't Stop by: Liam Tracey Tue:01-Apr-08 Label: Kill Rock Stars Year: 2008 WB rating 73 out of 100

Listen once and you’ll be thinking, “Wow, this is what Myths of the Near Future should have been like: all the energy and no boring bits”. Listen a few more times and you’ll soon realise that Shy Child’s Noise Won’t Stop isn’t as brilliantly fascinating as first impressions might have it, as once the initial thoughts wear off this record reveals itself as somewhat of a repetitive long player. Don’t be dissuaded straight away though because there’s enough to enjoy here, the truth of the album lying somewhere between its stunning initial appeal and that first disappointing wave of reality.

Shy Child, like many, have embraced the electro rock genre that’s so heavily spun today, only with a fervour that sets them in a much more intense field than the likes of contemporaries LCD Soundsystem, Hot Chip and Klaxons. On Noise Won’t Stop, the New York pair – Pete Cafarella and Nate Smith – have built on their past couple of records and used this intensity to ensure that the record goes hard, fast and doesn’t give way. It seems quite normal for similar acts, such as those already mentioned, to include a variety of slower tracks to create diversity on their records. For those whoe see such inclusions as an unnecessary use of disc space, Shy Child are just for you.

The result of collating solely fast numbers is a collection of tunes that are as worthy of a club dance floor as they are of a festival mosh pit, hence catering for all noise-loving freaks. Of course, having a record with a set formula of loud and heavy electronics has its downsides as well and the end product often seems a bit of a blur – upwards of five tracks (‘Pressure to Come’, ‘The Volume’, ‘Generation Y’, ‘Kick Drum’ and ‘Summer’) are distinctly similar in their introductions, making it difficult to remember the specifics of anything at the end of the record’s 40-odd minutes. Yet even this problem of sameness and the dampening sense of déjà vu (Klaxons’ Myths and LCD Soundsystem’s Sound of Silver being two examples of Shy Child’s contemporary influences) cannot kill the spirit of Noise Won’t Stop.

With Shy Child the spark of love at first sight won’t last forever, but there’s definitely enough potential here to suggest we’ve got a keeper.