Snapshot of a Beginner

Album review

Like a rummage sale of disconnected observations and sudden enlightenments, a Nap Eyes album offers a surprisingly candid glimpse into a stranger's mind. Working from loose stream-of-consciousness freewriting sessions, singer, guitarist, and songwriter Nigel Chapman creates a sort of Mind Palace open house around which bandmates Brad Loughead (guitar), Josh Salter (bass), and Seamus Dalton (drums) build an infrastructure of jangling guitar pop that occasionally rollicks, but mostly chugs along in an easygoing midtempo manner. The Nova Scotian band's first decade concluded with a trilogy of strong albums that firmly established their distinctive sound and straightforward live-to-tape recording approach. Their fourth outing, Snapshot of a Beginner, shakes up the formula somewhat with more layered arrangements and lusher production courtesy of co-producers Jonathan Low (the National) and James Elkington (Joan Shelley, Steve Gunn). Aside from offering up one of the band's catchiest tracks to date in the bizarrely exultant single "Mark Zuckerberg," Snapshot seems to document a sort of unraveling of Chapman's own identity through various non-linear self-examinations. Addressing himself directly on "So Tired," he sings "Nigel, you're so scared of people trying to control your life and criticize you, change what you do, make you have to admit, anyone else knows better than you do." It's quite the takedown, especially for an opening cut, and while he does spend a good chunk of the album under his own microscope, there are plenty of quirky detours including a poetic and detailed jaunt through the Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time video game ("Dark Link") and a hard-charging and very literal examination of what incarceration might be like ("If You Were in Prison"). Chapman even spends time discussing his own musical process ("Though I Wish I Could") then recriminating himself for making it the subject of the song. These terse introspections, while fascinating and sometimes uncomfortable, occasionally bog the set down and make it feel overly self-involved. For the band's part, they definitely benefit from being able to stretch out in the studio for a change, and Loughead in particular delivers some excellent lead guitar work. In terms of Nap Eyes' catalog, Snapshot feels like a bold new era, though it's not without its growing pains.
© Timothy Monger /TiVo