Post-hardcore bikers
If it hasn’t happened to you already, one day you’ll have a deeply visceral reaction to a singer. The reaction can be positive or negative, but the conclusion is that you are listening to something unique; Night Vapor engenders this type of reaction. Almost as if they were an experimental leaning version of Pissed Jeans, the lead singer growls his way violently through each and every song, while pounding instruments punctuate his every shouted syllable. The resulting music finds the singing a tad distracting, but the finished product is interesting nonetheless.
Right off the bat, this album is prepared to slap you in the face. Opening track “Dirt Miner” is a huge pounding cut that is happy to bounce between biker rock and post-hardcore guitar noodling. The combination proves interesting and leads to one of the most interesting tracks on the record. Unfortunately, other portions of the album fall into a by-the numbers-formula. “Hemmed Up” in particular relies on an interesting guitar melody in the background, but by the time the guitar solo enters the picture, it’s repeated so many times that the whole exercise begins to feel rather rote. Luckily there are some shorter tracks like “Rated Eye” that explore interesting paces and time signatures, leading to a memorably off-kilter experience.
The latter half of the album doesn’t get off to the best start with “Hot Head,” which is an absurdly simple track, where a lyrics formula of “She can (verb) you with a (noun), (new verb) you with (new noun) cuz she’s a hot head (x3)” grows old and makes the track feel half caked, and it doesn’t help that it has one of the more simple instrumentals on the record. “DNR” is a tad more exciting from an instrumental standpoint but remains largely uninteresting outside of the excellent lyric “I had a silver necklace that clearly stated, do not resuscitate,” which adds a nice flair of imagery to the record, which is often lacking.
The rest of the record remains decent at best, though the fantasy vibes of “Castle Rock” and “Mastermind” make for good fun. “Mastermind” in particular makes excellent use of the instrumentals to punctuate specific moments of the song. Closing track “Your Daily Bread” closes out the album in much the same way that the rest of the back half did, slowly and a little less excitingly than the first half, though the bass line in the track is excellent.
Certain things work on paper but not in reality. Some don’t work in either. 1,000 Miles of Mud is more the latter than former, unfortunately. This combination of biker rock and experimental was always going to be fighting an uphill battle, but to their credit, Night Vapor did show that there is the potential for success. It just requires a little more pizzazz than they were able to deliver on this passable, but somewhat underwhelming record.
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