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***They were a punk band in the early '90s, a free-rock-jazz combo by the mid-'90s, and an alternative-to-indie pop combo at the turn of the millenium. Now with their fifth CD (and third on Smells Like Records) Nod embark upon yet another journey toward aural stupefaction. Good Night Sleep is many things: folksy, artsy, rocksy, bluesy - but most of all, Nodsy. Levitating somewhere just above lo-fi, Nod surfs easily from genre to genre, with the requisite charm of intact first-take stumblings. The opening track, "The Old Hotel," a dreamy and groovy pop, with spacey, doubled vocals and overdriven yet mild-mannered guitars, is followed by the strange folk of "Walk The Little Man." Scrappy Joe sings in his fairytale-teller voice, serving him especially well on "The Dragon," a Danielsons-like mini-epic that harkens various earlier and simpler times, even as far back as Genesis. Equally lo-fi and arty is "Wispy Woosp," which may remind the listener of a dark, lonely and urban, no-wave past. "Hey You Ride" is a chipper baby Elvis tune, and "Wild Ol' Bill" is minimalist Steely Dan without the anal (p)retention. When not telling lonely tales without morals about lonely people without morals, Nod provide a startling continuity with their instrumentals - drunken dub debauches collide with fuzzed, electric Fahey fingerings across a skiffle-esque shuffle that can only elicit wild suspicion about northwestern New York state water. All in a day's work, it would appear, for one of the only working rock groups with a genuinely original sound. - A high-altitude double-cannonball into the genre pool, refreshing everyone in the vicinity with an unpretentious splash
- No[d] style is a style
- Their third full-length album for Steve Shelley's Smells Like Records
30-second RealAudio excerpts: Old Hotel
Border Song
Space Whale
Dragon
Whispy
Walk the Little Man
Wild Ole Bill
Baby You Ride
Universal Bonus Trac |
