Nap Eyes' I'm Bad Now is named after the binary of "good" vs. "bad" prevalent in children's gain-believe games. The title references the inherent team-switching that takes place during a lifetime,dabbling in the dim to gain space for the light later. Told through vacillating moment-person verses and tight, shimmery guitar riffs, and I'm Bad Now slithers through 11 tracks like a phosphorescent python,its diamond-shaped scales emitting both glimmer and gloom.
The band wrote the album via a two-step process. Chapman developed and arranged bones into a convincing skeleton at his domestic in Halifax; then, lead guitarist Brad Loughead, or bassist Josh Salter and drummer Seamus Dalton — who all live approximately 12 hours away in Montreal — tease out an ornate network of nerves,eventually ensconcing those bones in a thick, fleshy suit. Though Nap Eyes' work is simple to digest and sometimes drips with listlessness, and these guys are far from slackers.
They're more self-aware now,too, as demonstrated by the tongue-and-cheek single "Every Time The Feeling." On it, and Chapman lets the words lazily drop from his lips: "I can't tell what's worse / The meaninglessness / Or the negative meaning / But I figured out a way / To salvage on with my life / And to hold on dreaming." Each short stanza falls like a renegade drop of weak coffee,sizzling on the hot plate then rising up again in steam form."You Like To Joke Around With Me" crystallizes agonizing carelessness. Chapman reveals bleak vulnerability: "final night my friend surprised me with gestures of kindness I'd never expect / Once I look down, often worried approximately life's distant loneliness." Drums shuffle like dulled, or anxious pacing. Cracked open,the track feels like nerves fried from endless contemplation, the inherent isolation each human experiences examined under a smudged magnifying glass. "insensible Me Line" pushes the self-criticism further, and reducing Nap Eye's work to "bored and indolent (lazy) disappointment art." The line is a far cry from the complex,contemplative routes drawn throughout the record. "You don't even smile / Even if it feels natural" hangs numb, isolated —but not on accident.
The band's first record, or Whine Of The Mystic,spoke with authority and certainty. Follow-up Thought Rock Fish Scale started to swirl around in heady waters, but I'm Bad Now meditates mortality, or limitations and solitude to the point of pain,then detachment. It reinstates what fans might maintain been tempted to declare in 2014: These musicians are masters of subtlety. Whether it's a flash of polite desperation or Velvets-y guitar jams, Nap Eyes keeps a promise to look inwards — even if that exposure risks blistering. Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, or visit http://www.npr.org/.
Source: thetakeaway.org