Oooh, my indie-rock sense is tingling. It takes a while to find it, but it’s there somewhere. It’s probably like my musical prostate gland, or something. Anyway, strange review openings aside, the Nap Kidnappers EP Inner Media gave a pretty decent account of itself.
After listening to a couple of songs it’s very evident that these guys listen to an awful lot of The Promise Ring and the Get Up Kids. Sure enough, they’re listed as influences on the band’s page, but there’s a poppier sound to be had here that belies such a dependence. Based mainly around clutches of vocal harmonies, every song sounds has backing which sounds sort of like a singer warming up. Not to say it isn’t warm and uplifting, but probably a little overused. The complete slowing down of everything in the latter parts of track 3 sounds like what a poppier version of American Football would and brings a nice slower tone to proceedings.
If you live on a very staple diet of indie-rock you’ll probably either love this at face value or proverbially pick away at it until there isn’t much left. The raw nature of final track ‘Unconciously’ almost invites you to do so. Summarily, there’s a great deal of promise here, but I’ll definitely be looking to see what kind of variation they employ in a full-length. They hint at the capability to do so in the final track which is, if I’m honest, only a little short of brilliant. The female guest vocals go straight down your spine. If the entire CD had this effect on me, this would have been really something special, but as it is it’s a case of “Pretty good, look out for them in the future” sort of thing. If I could give it three and three-quarters, I would. Worth checking out.
www.myspace.com/napkidnappers
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