The Non-Commissioned Officers: ‘Make-Out with Violence EP’. The debut EP released on Make Mine

Conventional origins usually denote preparation; a semblance of plot. But The Non-Commissioned Officers are hardly conventional. Their origins consist of a jaw dropping gig in New York, which ended with the band’s mum singing a cover of Eno’s ‘St. Elmo’s Fire,’ and, when delving further, a movie.

In 2004 brothers Jordan and Eric Lehning were enlisted to write the pop song score for the independent film ‘MAKE-OUT with VIOLENCE,’ a genre-bending tale of a boy trying to fulfill his unrequited love for a girl risen from the dead. In addition to composing, the brothers both acted in the film and formed the band to help raise money toward its completion. The sound of The Non-Commissioned Officers developed from this project as it grew bigger, stranger and more demanding over the subsequent five years. The Lehning’s challenge was to create a unique and varied song score that would seem both pertinent and timeless; every character was to have a discrete musical direction that would speak to their emotional core and orient the audience in their head spaces. Tricky, then.

But, the sound of the MAKE-OUT with VIOLENCE EP, a precursor to the MAKE-OUT with VIOLENCE soundtrack proper, does just that and more. The Non-Coms call it the sound of “Moody Eno-esque pop,” we call it the sound of delirious heartbreak, visceral pleasures and grasping euphoria.

Lead track ‘No Means No’ is, in Eric’s words, a “teenager” song: two chords, racing pulses and a eulogy forlorn. The Love Society’s Amanda Crawford appears on ‘Anyway OK’s’ tale of “wanting to grow some balls,” her coquettish lilt multi-tracked and lay prone across a disembodied theremin. Elsewhere the brother’s do oblique spoken word references: “ice cream in the lava flow,” mixed with melodious handclaps (‘Sweet Eleanor’), Thomas Dolby-inspired synthpop (‘You Don’t Even Know Her’), and on ‘Frozen Tongue,’ amalgamate mortality’s ubiquitous shadow with an endless lust of plucked string and ethereal tongues.

Nashville is a pretty strange town, and The Non-Commissioned Officers are a pretty strange band. They’ve been described as “a perfect combination of lazy and stubborn,” they’ve told people to expect a “20lb increase” at live shows, They have a rotating line-up of Nashville’s finest: members of Eureka Gold, Shoot the Mountain, And the Relatives, and All We Seabees. Convention is a fine thing when context demands. But not here.

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