Nudes’ debut record is a quick-fire burst of 90s indie guitar fed through British sensibilities. Boasting just 8 songs and recorded in a day, there’s an off-kilter energy to it all that is a snapshot of a band unsure what’s going to happen next. The result is decent but feels far too fleeting and unfinished.
‘Our Headache Years’ opens proceedings in a positive fashion. Punk energy is tinged with poppy melancholy that will be instantly familiar to fans of Replacements or The Smoking Popes. Vocalists, Saam Watkins (not a typo) and Sion Thomas, strain their words out with raw but nonchalant effort. It sounds good and packs a decent, if not spectacular, punch in under 3 minutes.
‘Dive Straight For The Black Hole’ and ‘The Dig’ ramp up both the angst and noise. Nudes have commented that the record deals with teenage themes and there’s a bratty insecurity which shines through in these two songs.
It’s here that the trio plays to their strengths. The distorted but jangly guitars are backed by a fuzzy, flat bass and pounding drums. A more than passing resemblance to Dinosaur Jr can be heard throughout and it’s easy to imagine Nudes opening for them in some scruffy Boston dive bar.
Yet, the album still feels undercooked and suffers from its rushed production. There are moments of catchy, scrappy, indie-punk but the overall package is one that feels like an unfinished jigsaw. There’s fragments of a bigger picture but it’s incomplete.
‘Promise You Won’t Move Too Close’ is almost a waste of two and half minutes. It builds up a swell of sombre bass and glittery, echoed guitar but never goes anywhere. The song is incredibly out of step with the rest on the album. It suggests foundations are there for something more but there wasn’t enough time to build on them.
Nudes’ debut record is a reminder of how much pressures and expectation can affect the final product. Perhaps it would have been better to focus on key songs, such as the Gen-X pop fuzz of ‘Constant Summer’, and create an EP.
Instinct tells me they’d be a lot of fun to see live and would benefit from being given the time to hone some of their sounds. As it stands, their debut album feels more like a diamond in the rough demo than a fully-fledged record.
ASHLEY PARTRIDGE