On their debut release, Noughts aren’t prepared to take any prisoners. ‘Skew’ explodes open with a screeching guitar, and is quickly backed up by some rolling drums and a thunderous bassline. The track blasts away as guitarist/vocalist Tom Brierley howls, and despite the mayhem, Noughts settle into an angular groove. With such ear-splitting ferocity combined with the repetitive nature of the beat, ‘Skew’ almost becomes hypnotising and you’re momentarily lost amongst the feedback and fuzz.

However, just as you think Noughts can’t push any harder, the track moves up another level, with co-vocalist and bassist Sean Marshall roaring “you’re wasting away” over pounding drums and sprawling guitars. There’s a brief moment of relief in the form of a frenzied guitar riff, before Noughts find one last bit of energy and charge towards the finish line. It’s a savage way to introduce Noughts to the world, but ‘Skew’ is the kind of track that will melt your brain over and over again if you haven’t completely lost your hearing on the first listen.

To celebrate the debut release, we had a chat with the band to find out all about Noughts.

TJ: For the uninitiated, who are Noughts?

N: We are three people originally from the north of England who all share a passion to make loud abrasive noise rock. We threw a jam together at Three Phase Studios in Brunswick in late 2017 and found  Melbourne to have such an awesome community of like minded musicians, so we couldn’t wait to start writing songs that we really wanted to play live.

’Skew’ is a pretty wild way to introduce Noughts to the world - what’s the story behind the track?

‘Skew’ actually came as a response to another song we’d recently written. That song had a verse and a chorus and felt uncomfortably conventional to me. I felt like I had to purge myself somewhat so I thought what’s the most abrasive chord my fingers can produce and brought it to the lads. The rest came together in a few sweaty practiceroom hours. The result is definitely a live favourite of ours so it kind of made sense to put it out there as our first single. 

You haven’t been together as a band for too long, but have already played a bunch of great gigs - any highlights so far? Any gig where Rich doesn't break/have a technical malfunction with his drum kit is a positive gig. We are still pretty new to playing live as Noughts but so far it's been unreal to share the stage with the likes of Grim Rhythm, Lost Talk, Zeahorse and Leavings.

Rumour is you’ve got a debut EP in the works - any idea what we can expect?

The EP is made up of a selection of songs we have worked on, since the inception of the band up until now really. There’s a bit of variety as far as tracks go, but the idea was that we really wanted to give an initial snapshot of what we’re about. We recorded 5 tracks with Max Ducker (Lost Talk) at Cellar Sessions Studios in Coburg, which was a great experience and we’re super happy with the way they’ve turned out. Ideally we’re looking at getting some friends together for a release show within the next couple of months and making tracks available on Spotify amongst other platforms. 

How’s the rest of the year looking for Noughts?

We’re really just taking things as they come, we obviously have the single coming out, and then we’re really excited to be playing with Shepparton Airplane at the Tote on Saturday June 9th. After that there’ll most likely be a single release show, followed by the release of our first EP. That’s really as far as our plans go, so apart from all that we’re just looking forward to developing the next batch of songs, playing some more shows and making some new friends.