No Age’s earliest efforts were nice, but they didn’t exactly stand out from the lo-fi crowd — with boundless energy,
hopelessly distorted guitars and catchy vocal lines buried deep within layers of noise. But, starting with 2008’s gorgeous Nouns, the band has varied their approach, balancing squalls of distortion with care- fully crafted noise sculptures.

Songs like “Things I Did When I Was Dead” and “Impossible Bouquet,” though still composed almost entirely of guitar noise, feature vocals that — for a change — are fully audible, floating above dense thickets of ambient feedback loops.

The band continued this maturation on last year’s Everything in Between, combining delicate sound manipulation with energetic punk rock on “Glitter” and “Valley Hump Crash.” While some songs, like the excellent “Fever Dreaming,” main- tain the relentless pace of the band’s early work, much of the record stays at a more relaxed tempo, giving the listener a chance to savor the band’s increasingly hummable melodies.

Though initially strictly a guitar-and- drums duo, on their most recent tour, No Age added a third member to help control the increasingly intricate loop-work on Everything in Between.

The guys are known to put on an incredible live show, maintaining a sense of energy you’d expect from a punk band. No Age is coming to town this Friday for a show at the Che Cafe? — an unsurprising move, since they got their start at their own DIY venue, Los Angeles’ the Smell.

The concert’s $10, but the Che doesn’t sell advance tickets, so anyone set on attending the concert should be sure to line up outside on Friday afternoon.