Nod - All I Know Is We're Standing Here Together LP
Like the hype sticker reads, Nod is somehow loose and tight simultaneously, both together and shambly in the same breath, knees-a-shakin’. Like the hand-made replicas of the band, photographs featured on the back of the jacket and insert, these songs seem to be yearning for an actual, hand-made, in-the-flesh, reality, moving away from technologies and screens (and AI!).
Like a combination of the Velvet Underground and the Strapping Fieldhands. Hooky riffs and vocals, with a groove and warble that makes you shake your head (and butt). Also having a slight feeling of 90’s slack-rock, but with bits here and there reminiscent of an older era, like drunk-ass Americana, riding in big cars on hot days without air conditioning. Lyrically, there’s a confessional element—very internal, subjective, 1st person. Like we’re all taking a ride with Joe down a long country road, or stuck in traffic, either way, he’s waxing on about the power technology has over us, and his struggle to escape.
This album is a collective yearning for time away from the day job, getting on the road, floating down the river, just anywhere but the desk, the screen, the machine. An album crafted of little stories, the belief of music, the belief in love, the belief that things are OK if we’re standing here together. Too sappy? Fuck it.
I always felt that Rochester New York’s Nod were a sonic mash up of West Coast weirdos the Icky Boyfriends and Western Massachusetts stoners Supreme Dicks. Shambly, distorted and twisting & twirling in a hazy psychedelic punk kinda way. Totally out of time and space with what is happening in the rest of the music world.
Very much existing inside their own secret sonic palate. Similar to in concept with the great Japanese cult band Shalal Hash Baz. They both have released records over their long careers that extol the virtues of deconstructing rock music and going for the summit when the technique is basically winging it and hoping for the best.
Or maybe a better comparison would be a less sexually hung up version of The Modern Lovers? How about NRBQ if they hung out with the Electric Eels?
Ok, ok… I’ll stop throwing band names at you and just say Nod are the best rock & roll band of the 21st century!!! — John Schoen