Next week, Canadian indie group Nap Eyes will release their third full length album I’m Bad Now, the follow up to 2015’s Thought Rock Fish Scale. After sharing the first single in anticipation for the album – the country-folk ballad “Every Time the Feeling” – the quartet has returned with the almost title track “I’m Bad,” laced with a transparent and highly personal lyrical narrative, perhaps even the most personal the group has ever done. While the track still very much bolsters the same feelings of melancholy and nostalgia that appeared throughout their past work, there’s also a newfound current of super charged self-awareness that runs through the track, as Chapman refers to himself in the second-person, confronting and “diagnosing his delusions.” He laments in a tired, yet somehow fervid croon that “it doesn’t take much/ to topple your equilibrium/ you say you’re a hated son/ and disappointment haunts everyone.” He attacks his intelligence and abilities with vitriol and yet the track lurches forward despite it all, the melancholy surging in again more potent than ever. At times, however, that same carefree, lucid nature of the instrumentals can be close to heartbreaking, almost as if Chapman hides under the blanket of guitar and drums, but with the insidious desire for the listener to lift up the covers and get to the vulnerable center that nestles itself within the lyrics. Yet, there’s something oddly charming in the way this is orchestrated, and something so ironically clever in ending the track with the phrase “You’re so dumb” and following it up with such a killer guitar solo, Chapman giving us a sly wink and leading us to believe he’s not really as bad as they say.
I’m Bad Now will be released on March 9th.
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kid with a vinyl 