Sometimes the sound of a penny dropping can ring as loudly as a firework in certain ears. For Nation of Language, a lightbulb flicked on as the New York trio looked out over the crowds gathering to see them play in 2021, the post-pandemic giddiness which brought live music back with a bang.
Suddenly the band, whose first two albums had slowly formed legions of lockdown fans, saw first-hand the impact their songs had on the listening public, and they realised once and for all their mission – to give as much to the fans who turned up wanting to dance as they do to those arriving wanting to cry.
Frontman Ian Devaney speaks of the “tightrope” this presented, and Strange Disciple sees him and bandmates Aidan Noell and Alex MacKay walking it with maybe a slight tilt to one side. There are no ballads here, with tears instead coming from the luscious arrangements of songs like the spellbinding closer ‘I Will Never Learn’, sounding like the gentlest iteration of New Order covering a Joy Division B-side they found flicking back through a past life. ‘Sightseer’ too supplies melancholy and introspection, with a depth of sound and feeling which is never quite reached by the more dancefloor-led tracks, although they probably aren’t looking for it anyway.
There are, though, certainly more of them. ‘Sole Obsession’ is sure to resonate with fans of the mid-teens new wave revival spearheaded by bands like Everything Everything, but Nation’s influences are surely drawn straight from the source – the pointy synths of ‘Surely I Can’t Wait’ and ‘Too Much, Enough’ are plucked straight from the mid-eighties record shelves, and the bass-led ‘Stumbling Still’ makes more than a passing reference to a certain Peter Hook.
Stumbling is something the band would have been particularly eager to avoid on Strange Disciple, the third release in what has become a triptych based on modes of transport – first album Introduction, Presence represents the motor car, its follow-up A Way Forward becomes the locomotive and this latest release lands on its feet as an album inspired simply by walking. But pedestrian it is certainly not, as the band take strides into uncharted and exciting territory.
Words - Joe Ponting
Nation Of Language official