NAKE – Nake
Release Date: 26th January 2024
Label: Self Released
Bandcamp
Genre: Progressive Rock, Instrumental, Americana, Post-Rock, Post-Metal.
FFO: TOOL (maybe?), Walking Across Jupiter, Devin Townsend.
Review By: John Newlands
NAKE are a Danish progressive instrumental post-rock band with Americana stylization. The press statement reads that NAKE, “delivers a rhythmic complexity reminiscent of Tool, while other passages are lingering, closer to the noisy end of post-rock like Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Throughout, the music is experienced as a soundtrack to a fictional film in the listener’s mind, due to the use of western-like guitar playing in the style of Morricone’s scores, as well as themes played on analog synthesizers that bring the sci-fi soundtracks of the 80s to mind.”
The album opens with Offering, a really nice catchy post-rock/metal number that builds tension and opens out to a great head bobbing guitar riff. Track 2 Weaver starts with an Americana-esq passage that leads to an unexpected guitar breakout and at the midpoint, a breakdown reminiscent of something TOOL. By track 3 Traveller I start to notice a formula to the tracks, and the prog element of NAKE really starts to come to the fore.
By the time we come to track 4, Initiation, the prog nature, synthesiser/ keyboard work and 80s inspired programmed drum fills are on full display and the riff is pretty cheesy. This track is hands down my least favourite track on the release.
I enjoy listening to Nake up until this point, but unfortunately moving into the back half of the album I start to struggle. Morningered is overlong, leans into the TOOL tropes again, and doesn’t make any new ground. The same can be said for Arrival, which is at least half as long. Cast feels like an effort to evoke grand landscapes of the Wild West and take the listener to another place before bleeding seamlessly into the album closer Common.
The opening Bass line to Common is reminiscent of Chemical Brothers sample of the Crusaders “The Wells Gone Dry” in Block Rockin’ Beats. This threw me, and to be honest, made me want to listen to the Chemical Bothers rather than NAKE. I realised at this point I was saturated with NAKE, an experience I got each time I listened to the album.
Everything aside, production on the album is excellent, keyboardist Poul Høi has done a great job here, all instrumentation is clear and captures the dynamics of the band. The artists are clearly very talented and accomplished musicians.
Sometimes less is more, but with NAKE, they seem to go with more is more and more is better. For this listener, it is sometimes too much, the long runtime, cinematic grandeur, guitar solos, Americana, 80s feel and progressive quirkiness is overwhelming. Throughout the release, I found myself zoning out or becoming irritated with sections of the tracks.
So, on paper it appears that there is a lot to like here, but unfortunately there is also a lot that puts me off. Firstly, for me, there is the aforementioned influence from TOOL. This influence is perhaps relied on way too much, to the point where they are using signature TOOL tropes / techniques, which doesn’t feel very original.
An Americana feel/ sound is also present in some parts of the album. At times the guitar playing, effects (slapback delay and reverb) use does give a feeling of wild west movies and reminiscent of Morricone’s work, but to be honest, I don’t feel it fits with the other sci-fi prog and post-rock elements on display by the band.
Overall, the album is overall too long, for me, there are one or two tracks I would have cut to make the album more palatable and even open for repeated listens. Especially with an instrumental LP, I personally feel that length has a lot to say. I can listen to Mogwai, Russian Circles or any other number of instrumental pot-rock, post-metal bands and not get tired or bored with tracks, riffs etc. but with NAKE, I found myself zoning out or getting bored.
It’s a decent debut album & I’m sure some instrumental progressive music enthusiasts will enjoy this one, but I’m not convinced that the heavy post-rock/metal, prog and Americana is something that I need to explore more. For this listener Nake was just too long, leans too heavy into influences and ultimately not to my taste.
(2.5 / 5)
