Somewhere in the middle of “Rides On” comes “Ride On”, one of several songs on Nude Party’s recent album. At almost five minutes – one of the longest on “Rides On” – it catches the eye for the detachment with which it tells a biography and, between the lines, evokes the Galaxie 500 at the extremes: first in the choruses that turn on the ignition, in the final seconds by the guitar that doesn’t know, can’t, won’t finish. All this would be irrelevant if Nude Party had ever sent out hints of Massachusetts trio influence in the past, on 2018’s namesake or Midnight Manor (2020). Far from it, they built themselves on an idea of rock linked to pysch blues and that earned them early comparisons to the Rolling Stones or the Velvet Undeground, with due distances. “Ride On” opens up the game and demonstrates a band that has learned to dialogue and transform the core to give everyone a voice.
A sextet born in North Carolina in 2012 and consisting of Austin Brose, Alexander Castillo, Shaun Couture, Patton Magee, Don Merrill and Connor Mikita, they earned a lot of local credit leading up to the release of their first album. They toured with the Black Lips, King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard, Cold War Kids and opened for Arctic Monkeys and Jack White. Everything went well for Nude Party and it would have been natural for them to look for another solution for the successor of the acclaimed “Midnight Manor”, one that would launch them in the natural order of things towards another kind of stardom. But they decided to slow down, dismiss the idea of an external producer and produce the six of them the reason that brings them to Zé dos Bois this June, “Rides On”. Fearless in its approach to the band’s folk/blues origins and takes them through a range of influences, which run the gamut from the sound of Stax, the Galaxie 500 and the adventurous hive of disco. Keeping the psych rock/blues base, libertarian where they go to drink sounds and how they fit them into a batch of songs that sound – quite rightly! – to something else and are heard as instant hits: “Sold Out Of Love”, “Cherry Red Boots”, Ride On”, “Hey Monet”, “Tell Em” or “Midnight On Lafayette Park”. Recorded without haste, at the rhythm of sharing and chatting of who knew how to take a step back and grow. “Rides On” is the continuous movement that passes through Lisbon at the right moment. AS
