Mission of Burma: ONoffOn : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

When mission of burma reconvened a few years back for their first live gigs in almost two decades, generations of college-radio DJs rejoiced. OnOffOn, the band's first studio album since 1982, shows the Boston quartet hasn't turned its back on the abrasive, high-energy sound that influenced all kinds of noisy indie rockers. Arty rave-ups such as "Fake Blood" may read like political manifestoes, but these aging left-wingers are just getting their rocks off, making a deceptively sloppy art collage out of jumpy rhythms and syncopated guitar blasts. Songs such as the buzz-saw "Nicotine Bomb" would sound at home on a Seventies punk compilation; you wish the band would let some tunefulness creep in, but the dozens of riffs, guitar spills and slogans pack a messy, intelligent punch.