Nihilistic Easyrider. The moniker Jacob Duarte chose for his solo project is almost a disclaimer in itself: Don’t read too far into this. “Easyrider” invokes a multitude of definitions, most of a titillating, opportunistic, or otherwise anti-status quo nature — interpretations that pique questions about morality. “Nihilistic,” however, suggests that Duarte, our unreliable narrator, isn’t too concerned with the distinction between right and wrong. Maybe you could uncover some sort of meaningful philosophy about that combination of words if you smoked enough weed — and our narrator will confess shortly to having smoked a lot — the Narrow Head frontman probably just thought the combination of two antithetical, multisyllabic words together would be funny to tell your buddies next time they ask what you’ve been listening to lately.
And did you catch the album title? Deluxe Edition. It’s Duarte’s misnomered debut full-length as Nihilistic Easyrider, out this Friday. His band Narrow Head, the grungy Texas shoegazers who formally arrived in 2016 like the second coming of Hum, have spent three studio albums oscillating between fatalistic cynicism and paranoia; that Creation-style production often renders the precise words unintelligible, but you sort of get the gist right away. Being alive, in the Narrow Head universe, is an endlessly dispiriting burden best served with a side of self-destruction. The marginally less-tortured Deluxe Edition certainly doesn’t wear rose-colored glasses, but it approaches the nuisance of existence with a bit of a sly wink. This life is a mess, Deluxe Edition seems to say, but at least it’s all probably temporary.
You’re bound to derive some enjoyment out of Deluxe Edition if you were fond of Narrow Head’s more pop-forward 2023 record Moments Of Clarity, but also if you really like Regretfully Yours or Fountains Of Wayne or Blink-182. Duarte’s brand of what I like to call power-pop-punk is nostalgic by design — “Nihilistic Easyrider songs are closer to the music I always wanted to make growing up,” he’s explained — but he doesn’t often get too stuck in one specific mode across its 12 songs. Functionally, it’s a proper LP, but it’s billed as a bit of a pseudo-mixtape that cobbles together newly written songs along with freshly fleshed-out ideas Duarte first conceived in his late teens and early 20s.
To translate that wistful feeling to tape, he made Deluxe Edition with a small crew of likeminded ’90s/’00s revivalists including longtime Narrow Head drummer Carson Wilcox, who brings just the right amount of edge to the record’s softer moments; recent Album Of The Week honoree Graham Hunt, who acts as both a multi-instrumentalist and producer; and Momma’s Allegra Weingarten and Etta Friedman, who add some call-and-response backing vocals to album highlight “Drive All Night.” Deluxe Edition won’t be the most balanced or carefully considered rock album you hear this summer, but it might be among the most fun, its throughline found in Duarte’s pursuit of pure amusement while navigating a bleak universe.
As if to ensure you’re listening to it in the right carefree mindset, Deluxe Edition kicks off with its lead single “Getaway Plan,” a caffeinated, hedonistic anthem that feels like tidying up — physically and emotionally — in the wee hours of a Houston backyard party. “No one is there to bring us down tonight,” Duarte tells one of his fellow partygoers, though that ambition is quickly squashed when the hangover starts to creep in: “This is all I am/ I don’t think I can/ Everyone’s waiting for the getaway plan,” he muses in its effortlessly catchy chorus, the slight alt-rock rasp in his voice contrasting the piercing, poppy piano keys. You get the sense he’s hungry for some sort of escapist reprieve, finding comfort by convincing himself that everyone around him is equally dissatisfied. Where Narrow Head songs tend to embrace solitude, Deluxe Edition feels more like crawling yourself out of a depressive episode, lured by the healing properties of some friendly commiseration: “No one’s calling back/ I don’t blame them/ Say you have your night planned/ Thanks for calling back/ I understand,” Duarte sings on the laid-back “Weekend Fever,” a stark realization that the earth continues to spin even when he feels spiritually absent from its plane. “I won’t say hi but I’ll see you around.”
Deluxe Edition still indulges in quite a bit of deadbeat self-deprecation. “Don’t Get Scared Now…” is a mellow wash of sound about achieving a vegetative state of stonedness, not feeling anxious about the lack of control but indifferent about what the immediate future may hold. That’s fun and all, but the album’s most rewarding moments are when you start to feel Duarte achieve a fragment of self-assuredness. On the gently twangy, Elliott Smith-like ballad “Everything Is So Fucked Up,” Duarte grieves a fizzled-out friendship before concluding that it might not have even a beneficial one in the first place: “We don’t even talk these days/ ‘Cause everything’s so fucked up/ I’m making myself proud/ ‘Cause I don’t even miss you now.”
The saccharine, vivid guitar pop of “Well Kept Secret” ostensibly sees Duarte growing into a more genuine version of himself: “Telling my secrets tonight/ Losing my reason to hide.” The title of “Sanatorium” hyperbolizes that self-imposed loneliness, as Duarte declares from inside his four walls that the only way out is through: “Don’t look back, it’s suicide.” Over the perky jangle of standout track “Smiles And Cries,” he might even realize that genuine companionship with well-adjusted people isn’t just possible, but healthy: “I’ve been feeling not so good/ It feels like I’m nearly at the end,” he sings. “Like a song you’ve grown to like/ You’re feeling all right.” Deluxe Edition is full of big hooks that go down incredibly easy, energetic without being excessive. It isn’t all that deep, but it never tries to be — you can find that depth elsewhere if you need it. Deluxe Edition is for when you’re already feeling the weight of the world, eager for a reprieve from the existential torment, thankful for a reminder that it doesn’t have to last forever.
Deluxe Edition is out 7/25 via Run For Cover.
Other albums of note out this week:
• Tyler Childers’ Snipe Hunter
• Ryan Davis & The Roadhouse Band’s New Threats From The Soul
• Indigo De Souza’s Precipice
• Golomb’s The Beat Goes On
• Freddie Gibbs & The Alchemist’s Alfredo 2
• Cory Hanson’s I Love People
• Editrix’s The Big E
• Post Animal’s IRON
• Alice Cooper’s The Revenge Of Alice Cooper
• Folk Bitch Trio’s Now Would Be A Good Time
• Welcome Strawberry’s Desperate Flower
• Tommy Genesis’ Genesis
• Luke Haines & Peter Buck’s Going Down To The River…To Blow My Mind
• Night Moves’ Double Life
• OneRepublic’s Beautiful Colors
• Yoshika Colwell’s On The Wing
• Bleary Eyed’s Easy
• Black Sabbath’s Earth: The Legendary Lost Tapes
• Nick Drake’s The Making Of Five Leaves Left Box Set
• Samantha Schmütz & Adrian Younge’s Samantha e Adrian
• leon todd johnson’s wa kei sei jaku
• Far Caspian’s Autofiction
• Cody Jinks’ In My Blood
• The Haunt’s New Addiction
• Patty Griffin’s Crown Of Roses
• Pretty Bitter’s Pleaser
• Madonna’s Veronica Electronica Remix Collection
• Fitz And The Tantrums’ Man On The Moon
• Rebecca Schiffman’s Before The Future
• Duke Dumont’s Union
• Thin Wrist’s The In Between
• Michael Clifford’s Sidequest
• Clifford’s Golden Caravan
• Ramon & Jessica’s Roses Are Blue
• Manslaughter 777’s God’s World
• Paul Weller’s Find El Dorado
• Signals Midwest’s Layovers
• The Honeydogs’ Algebra For Broken Hearts
• PSYCHO-FRAME’s SALVATION LAUGHS IN THE FACE OF A GRIEVING MOTHER
• Boneflower’s Reveries
• The Allegorist’s From Birth Until Death
• Michael Beach’s Big Black Plume
• Ben Nichols’ In The Heart Of The Mountain
• John Also Bennett’s Στoν Eλaιώνa / Ston Elaióna
• Safe Mind’s Cutting The Stone
• The Body’s All The Waters Of The Earth Turn To Blood (Deluxe)
• Anchor & Braille’s New Mexico
• Hudson Westbrook’s Texas Forever
• DJ DIE SOON’s MY BROTHEL THE WIND
• Mádé Kuti’s CHAPTER 1: WHERE DOES HAPPINESS COME FROM?
• Dance Lessons’ Beginners
• Josh Levi’s Hydraulic
• Assertion’s Basking In The Gaslight
• Wevie Stonder’s Sure Beats Living
• 747’s Pacific Spirit
• Oog Bogo’s Cowgirls
• Manslaughter 777’s God’s World
• Naethan Apollo’s Tales From Cazilor: Wyldflowers
• Heatmiser’s MIC CITY SONS – 30TH ANNIVERSARY REMASTER
• Kontusion’s Insatiable Lust For Death
• The Dirty Nil’s The Lash
• Cordyceps’ Hell Inside
• Bruce Dickinson’s More Balls To Picasso
• Galore’s Dirt
• Coffin Break’s Revival
• Fever Ray’s The Year Of The Radical Romantics Live Album
• SCALP’s NOT WORTHY OF HUMAN COMPASSION
• The Band CAMINO’s NeverAlways
• Homeboy Sandman & Sonnyjim’s Soli Deo Gloria
• Matching Outfits’ Ditch Me
• Devon Allman’s The Blues Summit
• leon todd johnson’s wa kei sei jaku
• Shelley Burgon’s The In Between
• DB.Boutabag’s The Real Boutabag 2
• Cheat Codes’ Future Renaissance
• Aidan Bissett’s shut up and love me
• Various Artists’ Wheel World (Original Soundtrack)
• Nick Sylvester’s Stereo Music For Breakbeats And Samplers
• Fred Thomas’ Critical Violets, Dream Erosion Pt. VII
• Hanumankind’s Monsoon Season Mixtape
• PSYCHO-FRAME’s SALVATION LAUGHS IN THE FACE OF A GRIEVING MOTHER
• Metro Boomin’s A Futuristic Summa
• Bicep’s TAKKUUK (Original Soundtrack)
• The Cords’ Fabulist
• TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s The Star Chapter: TOGETHER
• Why Bonnie’s The Bedroom EP
• Sweet Nobody’s Sweet Nobody Plays The Songs Of Joanna Newsom EP
• Aurelia & Icarus Moth’s PROMETHEANS EP
• dog eyes’ blue bird rain cloud EP
• Kurt Vile & Luke Roberts’ Classic Love EP
• Perfect 100’s Perfect 100 EP
• Nuovo Testamento’s Trouble EP
• nabeel (نبيل)’s ghayoom (غيوم) EP
• The Violent Hour’s The Violent Hour EP
• Kiesza’s Dancing And Crying: Vol. 2 EP
• Some Exercise’s Acme Trap EP
• Bella Rios’ Right Now EP
• Latter’s What Lives Inside Of Me EP
• Nuovo Testamento’s Trouble EP
