After two years of near-constant touring in support of their self-titled debut album,
the Nude Party
headed back to their communal farmhouse in the Catskills to work on another full-length with
Black Lips
'
Oakley Munson
. The resulting follow-up,
Midnight Manor
, finds the six-piece still cranking out riff-fueled, freewheeling rock jams about booze and women (and the music industry). Indebted to '60s and '70s acts like
the Velvet Underground
,
T. Rex
the Rolling Stones
, and
the Kinks
throughout, the 12-track set has both swagger and nervous energy to spare. Opening with a chord progression pounded out on piano, it begins with the raucous glam-punk tune "Lonely Heather" ("When you twist, I hear the crinkle of your leather") before delving into the Southern-fried, Latin-tinged accents of "Pardon Me, Satan." Elsewhere, the sleazy "Thirsty Drinking Blues" drinks alone following a breakup, and "Easier Said Than Done" takes a slightly more theatrical approach to loose and dirty rock & roll. Veering toward the more sensitive side are tracks like the
Rundgren
-esque "Shine Your Light" ("In a world falling apart/You are the light in the lonesome dark") and the
Jagger
-evoking "Time Moves On," a song whose layered rhythms include more ballroom basics as well as sustained strums saturated in delay. It's one of several tracks here with airy, mid-century-styled backing vocals.
closes with the stripped-down prom slow dance "Things Fall Apart," followed by an irreverent acoustic ditty, "Nashville Record Co.," which laments "They don't come to make sense/They come to take dollars" and "Someday I fear they'll replace us all with machines." (
arrives courtesy of Nashville-based
New West Records
.) "Nashville Record Co." takes the filler-free album out, appropriately, on a honky tonk jam. ~ Marcy Donelson