Triple Threat is a completion of three of No Momentum's EP; Mach Punch, Seismic Toss, and Parting Shot. The New York-based emo quartet like to play around with amateur wrestling imagery and sound clips, but as far as I can tell, the past time of hitting friends and acquaintances in the head with folding chairs or placing them in choreographed chokeholds doesn't permeate the content of the material any deeper than the superficial cuts a performer might razor into his forward head during a boiler-room brawl. That's alright. The lyrics and rock riffage they coast on are pretty hardcore even without the added wrestling innuendo. You can hear from the outset, on the opener "I Quit," how recklessly the group throws themselves into the material. Their main vocalist Kelly belts out every lyric like it might be her last, like she's imminently aware that there is an errant sawblade, sprung loose from a shop bench, and careening towards her neck like its the one thing in the world standing between it and the exit. A heightened level of intent and urgency charges the entire comp like a fork in an electrical outlet, filling it with nearly enough wattage to stop your heart, stone-cold. Especially on later tracks like "Boss Battle," which has this combustible rope-a-dope groove that makes you feel like you've been cornered by the band and their batting you around like a jobber squaring off against a heel whose finisher is a choke slam, or "Dance, Dance: Revolution" a circuit frying torrent and fuzz fricasseed free-fall that narrowly avoids succumbing to full skull-splitting skramz by a virtue of a groovy bassline and the inclusion of Sega soundcard sojourn in the bridge. That's the other thing about No Momentum; they really have a knack for chiptunes. It's not something that they mix with guitar riffs all that often, but they do include short, whimsical, vignettes of lo-fi, internal expansion card-enabled melodica at the end of each EP, which helps to earmark the different sections of the record as it is ordered chronologically by release date (earliest to latest). This sequencing actually works really well for the album on the whole, as the band's performances have become tighter and more intense over time, providing the record with a terminal sense of momentum (*cough cough*), building towards the final tightrope drop of the American Fugazi-ball, Terror-Drive-In, KO-cry of "Parting Shot." The kind of impassioned sincerity exhibited on Triple Threat kind of menace I wish I had more of in my life. Don't be a jabroni; put this record at the top of your card.
