Criminal Code

***“THIS IS TACOMA, NOT OLY! CRIMINAL CODE’s first proper long-player deals twelve tracks of technical precision matched with brickwall power. There’s a barbaric impulse festering in the twisted hearts of this Tacoma threesome, but No Device unfurls with dynamic tact and structural intricacy, sating its every aggressive urge with surgical attention to detail. With a stark palette of grizzly grays and off-white stains, Criminal Code details a singular spectrum of punk both bleak and savage. Naturally, the hardcore camp digs it because No Device extracts maximal strength from a few instruments in a minimal amount of time, but taut brooding snaps into serpentine guitar leads on enough songs for your death punk beholden to break off a piece. At any rate, Criminal Code tears down your descriptors and brings its own on No Device. A fiercely present, assertive album that dictates its own terms, listeners will find their go-to snappy little tags utterly inadequate and reductive. In the age of vaguely negative-wave nouveau and post-punk pastiche, Criminal Code is a colossal outfit casting its own long shadow.”—Sam Lefebvre Oakland, 2014