Following a debut EP and two albums with
Black Lips
'
Oakley Munson
in the producer's chair,
the Nude Party
offer up their first self-produced effort,
Rides On
. It's the culmination of an over-two-year period that generated over 20 songs -- among them experiments with county and electro-pop -- all tracked at the septet's leisure in their own barn studio in upstate New York. When it came time to sequence the record, they homed in on songs that favored '70s blues-rock a la
Sticky Fingers
-era
Stones
, albeit with conspicuous diversions into the '60s among the 13 tracks that made the cut on an album full of vintage flair.
opens with the strutting "Word Gets Around," which effectively merges
Rolling Stones
- and
T. Rex
-derived grooves as singer
Patton Magee
talks out of turn ("You know I'm not the kind to pry/Seldom say a negative word/Oh, but Jenny, haven't you heard?"). The good times already underway, they keep them going on second track "Hard Times (All Around)," a similarly styled anthem with compact guitar hooks, slinky basslines, vintage organ, and tambourine working loosely together in effortless harmony, even through meter changes (and cheeky rhymes like "Far be/It from me"). They temporarily step away from the sphere of
the Stones
to do their best
Tommy James & the Shondells
on party anthem "Hey Monet," then dive deep into
Phil Spector
while making room for a couple other '60s pop tropes on "Cherry Red Boots" before the almost-title track ("Ride On") incorporates touches of
the Velvet Underground
-- and we've only reached the midway point. While
come awfully close to quoting well-known riffs, grooves, and vocal affectations here, the fun they have doing so is contagious, and they nearly always bring enough of their own wry, irreverent, working-class moxie to the table that contemporary concerns as well as sheer charisma overpower any potential pastiche. Personnel notes: Not missing out on the sessions entirely,
Munson
did guest on the record;
Sam Cohen
mixed
. ~ Marcy Donelson