Naked on the Vague's second album isn't just Heaps of Nothing-- it's mountains of non-existent stuff, a landfill of noisy cacophony. Listening to this record front-to-back feels like a staring contest with the void, as the Australian duo of Lucy Phelan and Matthew Hopkins thrash through 1960s psych, harsh dub, and early Sonic Youth, if nobody in that band cared about guitar solos or arcane tunings. It sounds like they don't care about much of anything at all, actually as long as whatever they've got when they plug in makes one hell of a racket.
And it does. "Heavy" is definitely the operative word here, which makes Heaps of Nothing a departure from 2007's comparatively sparse Blood Pressure Sessions. There's serious stomp anchoring songs like "Wrong Room" that add urgency to the band's blank stares, and the track's very few chord changes end up coming off like gut-shot reverberations. The album is bookended with two songs, "Mysterious Oven" and "Blank Minds", that wear doom metal's brown-sound misery like a second skin.
When they're not adding slight color to their garbage-in-the-rain sonic aesthetic, Naked on the Vague are knee-deep in the mud, throwing in keyboard washes and distorted breakdowns lest they get too comfortable. You can rarely understand what Lucy Phelan is actually "singing", but when a voice is capable of exulting forcefully endless antagonism and apathy over amp-blown sermons like "The Joke", words aren't necessary.
All this noise and negativity can get tiring after a while. Although Heaps of Nothing can be a blast to listen to in small doses, as an album it embraces sonic overkill. This record is definitely a step closer to a more accessible sound, but it's still far from melodic. It's visceral stuff, and when it's brought together in album form, the listening experience can feel like a marathon. As such, it's just as easy to lose your patience (in the case of the seven-minute centerpiece "Sacred Youth") as it is to let Heaps of Nothing beat you into submission.
Stick with this one, then, or at least afford it more than a few listens. If you don't, you might miss Naked on the Vague's surprising sense of humor, like Phelan's "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida"-ripping organ line that kicks open "These Days" before it's torn apart by Hopkins' hacksaw guitar lines. Or the so-obvious-it-had-to-be-intentional Daydream Nation guitar lick that introduces "Mysterious Oven". Despite the chaotic, nearly inscrutable din that they create, Naked on the Vague walk away from Heaps of Nothing with a whole shitload of personality.
