The Nude Party / The Nude Party Label: New West Records

Reviewed: 1/17/2019

DJ Stace

New West Records is a label I've started stalking for great new music. Last year's Caroline Rose album was one of my favorite things in years, and this debut from The Nude Party is another fantastic piece of work. Channeling Exile-era Stones, Velvet Underground and Ennio Morricone, this is one of my favorite new albums. Psych-poprock, time-travelling goodness. Sometimes you can just tell a band is great live, and these songs all have that type of energy.

FCCs: None

RIYL: Rolling Stones (Exile-era), Thee Shams, Jim Ford, Velvet Underground, Ennio Morricone soundtracks

Play: Anything; Favorites: 1,6,11,3,9

1. Water On Mars 03:29 **** - Full on mid-tempo psych-pop masterpiece. Starts quietly with light cymbals and a great guitar riff. Great 60's psych organ accompaniment. Will have you singing "My mind's a spigot and I'm starting to dig it..." in your head for weeks.
2. Feels Alright 03:57 - Exploring the pros and cons of living in a post-atomic apocalypse. Total Rolling Stones vibe, with the honky tonk piano and that great riff. Mid-tempo blues rocker.
3. Chevrolet Van 04:18 *** - Cheeky and fun. Mid-tempo country-rock goodness built around the timeless rock musician's plight of unsolicited advice from family members. Play it once and people will request it again and again. Great lap steel flourishes.
4. Paper Trail (Money) 03:56 - As near as I can tell it's a song about working the NYC streets as a sex worker? Mid-tempo tune with organ lilting over the guitars.
5. War is Coming 03:11 ** - Cue the oil lamp projectors! Retro-throwback explosion! Everything you would expect from an anti-war popsong written and recorded in 1969, but actually written in 2018. Echo-ey, cavernous, psychedelic mid-tempo vintage goodness.
6. Records 03:31 **** - Another cheeky, and perfect, ode to the Rock&Roll lifestyle. This time a midtempo country-rocker with Keith Richards riffs and lines like "Cause I don’t need your affection, All I need is my bootleg collection." Vocalist Patton MaGee puts on his fanciest Mick Jagger pants... you can hear him strutting through the whole song.
7. Live Like Me 03:43 - Yeah, Baby! Dig my scene! More great 60's TV-cheese style psych-pop. Mid-tempo. Fun.
8. Gringo Che 03:46 - Midtempo. Great riffs. Great vocal stylings. This one sounds like it could have been a lost cut from Thee Shams great "Please Yourself."
9. Wild Coyote 04:04 *** - Welcome to the opening track of our side-trip into the Spaghetti West. Vast, fantastic Ennio-style guitars. A great mid-tempo dusty rocker with really pointy cowboy boots, a well-worn poncho and the stub of a cigar in it's mouth. Existential, narrative and desert-like. Great tune.
10. Astral Man 05:34 - Slow, plodding, ethereal with more cathedral-echoed guitar riffs. This one seems a bit "gothy." Spacey, vast and great.
11. Charlie's Sheep 04:02 - *** Instrumental. More fantastic explorations of Ennio's ghost. Big, flamenco-flourishing dusty guitar riffs and rattlesnake rhythms. Perfect ending to an album. Or an Italian western.