Nag: Observer 12″

Description

Halloween has been and gone for another year, but darkwave-inflected hardcore punk never goes out of fashion, right? And frankly, who gives a solitary fuck if it does?
Nags sinister second album is too busy being an ear-bleeding good time to care about shit like that. Its too wrapped up asking questions like is this real reality? – too caught up in pushing Bernard Sumner minimalism into furiously energetic bruisers and ever-darker corners. Its the record youve been waiting for throughout 2021, whether you knew it or not. This RIPS.
Formed in Atlanta, GA, Nag have already dropped an LP (last years Dead Deer, on Die Slaughterhaus) and a handful of 7s – all must-haves – but theyve never quite cut loose like this. Vocalist Brannon Greene pitches his delivery somewhere between a caustic holler and a dead-eyed sneer, taking the blank generation for a midnight drive and hurtling straight into a brick wall.
Meanwhile, the band nab ideas from no-wave, the wilder ends of Goner Records almighty roster, and the best (and sometimes synthiest) aspects of gothed-out post-punk – the resulting concoction may be composed of familiar elements, but it feels like no one else other than Nag. A more hyperbolic and verbose hack than me might say this is the moment that signals the band have arrived, but not me. Id just say this is a damn fine record – one of the very best things to have emerged from the wider punk rock mess in the last 12 months. Oh, and Id add that if you dont buy it, you may as well sever those things called ears, toss em into the woods and let any of their redeeming qualities seep out into the soil, cause thats the only way you could continue to argue that theyre serving any useful purpose. But you know, thats just me. You do you, friend. Actually, scratch that. Buy this record, you idiot.