Naomi Punk...smells sort of like teen spirit

The end of the world is, apparently, a lot like heavy rain.

Naomi Punk is not Nirvana, but not bad either...

NAOMI PUNK
The Feeling
(Captured Tracks)


Naomi Punk from Olympia, Washington tries Nirvana's hybrid of rock and punk, floating haunted shreds of semi-anthemic melody over primitive, whammy-barred riffs and a brutal clatter of drums. The trio - Travis Coster and Neil Gregerson on guitars, Nicolas Luempert on kit - released The Feeling last spring on tiny Couple Skate records, where it sold out almost immediately. Enter Captured Tracks, bringing this primal wail to a larger audience.


The Nirvana comparison is inevitable, due to volume, geography and a shared tendency towards scorched earth distortion, and, as always, sort of unfair. But let's just say it, Naomi Punk is nowhere near as nuanced - or as obliterating - as Cobain & Co. Their "The Buzz" wallows and lurches through tone-bending, lead-weighted chords, clumsily heavy next to Nirvana's more agile, but still lacerating "Love Buzz." However, like Nirvana, the threesome do raise a miasmic, sludgy racket and will it into tunefulness. Listen to how melody threads through pounding, gut-thudding "Voodoo Trust" and skitters over lurching, cement-booted "The Spell." Check out the title track, which with its thundering chords and hammer-head beat, sounds more like super-heavy, mildly psychotropic Ty Segall than anything from the flannel shirt era.

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