Skip to main contentBelieve this, music fans: if No Kind of Rider are not in contention for Best New Band in 2012, something is definitely amiss out there in the Portland scene.
This urgent and tuneful quintet already managed to impress the socks of me when I happened upon their performance at Rontoms last year. Seeing NKOR since then and now hearing the band's upcoming EP Away Colors (the band is holding a release show for this disc on Friday at The Woods), has only deepened my appreciation for the intensity and beauty of its sound.
This track here is a prime example of what I'm talking about. The bubbling synth line that runs underneath like an off-sync copy of "Baba O'Riley" over which guitarists Jeremy Louis and Sam Alexander bounce off rhythm and lead lines. When the stuttering drums sidle, it ratchets up the tension of an already tense song.
When I interviewed the band a while back, Alexander said it was understandable, but slightly annoying to find them being compared constantly to groups like TV On The Radio and Bloc Party. The short hand is that those are two bands who are playing music that pushes sonic boundaries but happen to also be fronted by black men. Not trying to pat myself on the back or anything but I would have likened a track like "Punch & Judy" to those aforementioned groups without knowing the skin color of some of the guys in No Kind of Rider.
It's mostly in Alexander's voice, which carries a similar haunting ache that Kele Okereke uses in some of Bloc Party's more moody songs (and especially on his solo effort). But the comparisons are also through the NKOR's use of the sensory plane. The song feels simultaneously full and spacious, overcharged and laidback. It takes some kind of sixth musical sense to be able to pull that off.
WWeek 2015