Guelph band’s debut LP offers raw, compelling post-punk
Guelph area-based post-punk outfit The Namedroppers released their first LP, Bored Bored Bored, earlier this month. Featuring songs mostly written by frontman/singer/guitarist Anthony Damaio, the album features The Namedroppers’ distinctive energy, characterized by urgent, folk-tinged punk with just enough left-field fusion influence to take it to some strange and wonderful directions.
The album opens with some eerie, 50s sci-fi guitar noise, courtesy of brilliant lead guitarist Michael DiFelice, and segues into the dissonant, oddly structured “Invisible Hands.” Right off the bat, we are invited to the weird world of Damaio’s snarly, devil-may-care songwriting style, reminiscent of Tom Waits, Stephen Malkmus (Pavement) and Joe Strummer (The Clash) – sometimes all at once. Laying the rhythm down with ballsy conviction throughout the album’s runtime, drummer Stephen Gomboc and bassist Sam Dlugokecki establish themselves early on as a rhythm section to be reckoned with.
“Get Straight,” the album’s fourth track, showcases the group’s folk influence most clearly. With a carnivalesque cynicism straight out of a Tom Waits tune (with all the voice rasp), “Get Straight” showcases a solemn refrain from the album’s hard-hitting volume and energy, and this P.T. Barnum-meets-Pixies circus theme is continued in the following track, “Pagliacci’s Day Out,” a bizarre, tongue-in-cheek reference to the clown from Ruggero Leoncavallo’s opera of the same name.
“Astroboy” marks a more spaced-out turn for the album – Damaio’s primal snarl is in top form here against a hypnotic ¾ groove and elusive lyrics. “Rotor” is, in many ways, the piece de resistance of the LP. A lulling, cyclical guitar/vocal section is bookended by long blasts of volume, a dynamic akin to Wire and Fugazi. “For I have loved you/For all your metal parts/I have no heart/I need no heart” – here, the sum is equal to all the parts, not unlike the mechanical theme of the tune.
“Smaller,” the album’s closer, is the poppiest song on the LP, but nonetheless a great closing track. Its upbeat feel and chimey guitars offer a refrain from the vague, intangible dread pervading many of the album’s cuts.
Overall, Bored Bored Bored is heavy, compelling, strange, and tons of fun. But there’s a bit of something here for everyone to enjoy – it’s a bit too folky to be considered “post-punk” proper, and not organic enough to be considered folk-punk, and that’s totally fine. Who’s keeping track, really? Give it a listen and see what you think. Beware, though – you might want to break shit while doing it.