Pressing Concerns: Nature’s Neighbor, Hayes Noble, Bug Seance, Workers Comp

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Good morning, Rosy Overdrive music blog nation! We’re wrapping up the month of June this week, and the first Pressing Concerns of the week is evenly split between records that came out last week (LPs from Nature’s Neighbor and Hayes Noble) and last month (an EP from Bug Seance and a compilation LP from Workers Comp). It’s a good one!

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Nature’s Neighbor – Projection

Release date: June 22nd
Record label: Pigeon Infirmary
Genre: Folk rock, soft rock, singer-songwriter, art rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: Learning to Sail (弓削島)

When we last heard from Nature’s Neighbor, it was 2022, and bandleader Mike Walker had recently moved from his longtime home of Chicago to Kyoto to become an English teacher. Before he departed, however, he recorded The Glass Album in Humboldt Park with longtime collaborators Terrill Mast and Seth Engel (Options, Mister Goblin). At the time, the future of Nature’s Neighbor was somewhat uncertain, and the period between The Glass Album and its follow-up has been one of tumult for Walker on a personal level. His writing on the latest Nature’s Neighbor album, Projection, reflects on the dissolution of his marriage, a temporary stay in Japan turning into an indefinite one, attempts to move forward romantically, meeting new friends and musical collaborators in his new home country, and being reunited with old ones (Mast, who visited Walker in Kyoto in late 2022). Like previous Nature’s Neighbor releases, Projection primarily moves in the world of breezy folk rock, and while there are some louder, more electric moments, it feels more insular and reflective than The Glass Album did, perhaps appropriately for a record built from clearly personal writing on behalf of its principal songwriter.

Projection starts at a low point in multiple senses of the word–“The Truth Is Not” is a subdued acoustic-based song that feels like the capturing of the tail end of a dissolving relationship. “Plastic Bag Love Song” continues this theme, although Walker and his collaborators are able to conjure up something more rousing both instrumentally (which adds a bit of his experimental pop influences, and the strumming is more upbeat) and lyrically (in which Walker looks ahead to a better future, concluding that the breakup was all for the best in the end). The musical subtlety continues across the first half of the record via the mandolin-heavy “美山 (Miyama)”, the floating “Not Pining for Anything”, and the hazy “Indecipherable Dreams” (in which Engel’s drums are arguably the most prominent instrument). There’s some shifting going on underneath the surface of these songs, but Projection really takes a turn when “Bumble Date With You” kicks off the record’s second half with electric alt-rock, a roaring, nervous song in which confusion turns into (still apprehensive) understanding.

After “Bumble Date With You”, “Learning to Sail (弓削島)” balances the personal concerns of the rest of the album with a chorus that zooms out and seems to take some comfort in it, the middle part of a rousing trio capped off by the icy indie rock of “Lizard Blood Man”. Projection wraps up with yet another turn towards the acoustic and quiet, with “Instant Friends”, the last proper song on the record, being a really heartfelt-sounding tribute to the new faces on the record’s “credit” list (Taro Inoue, Shintaro Nagahara, Asagi Tsuchiya), and while the unlisted closing track deals with some more complex feelings, it’s no less affecting. Walker views Projection as the final Nature’s Neighbor album, a sad designation if so–but should he choose to continue to make music in some form, he has as many hands to help him do so as at any point in Nature’s Neighbor’s run. (Bandcamp link)

Hayes Noble – As It Was, As We Were

Release date: June 21st
Record label: 2-2-1 Press
Genre: Fuzz rock, garage rock, punk, 90s indie rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
Pull Track: Midcoast Kids

Galena, Illinois is a small town off the Mississippi River tucked into the northwest corner of the state, about a half an hour from Dubuque, Iowa. It’s what you might call a “‘Kerosene’ by Big Black town”. For Hayes Noble, I suppose there was nothing better to do than start making loud fuzzed-out indie rock inspired by the melodic side of 90s punk-y indie rock–and that’s exactly what he did (to illustrate just how devoted Noble is to this era of guitar music, he even enlisted Mike Scheer–the artist who made all of Treepeople’s album covers as well as You in Reverse by Built to Spill–to make the artwork for his latest album). Noble’s debut album, Head Cleaner, came out last year, when he was still in high school–his brother Everett plays bass on the record, his father Brett drums, and this family band also functioned as Noble’s touring lineup. The second Hayes Noble album, As It Was, As We Were, follows a year and change later, recorded last summer in Iowa with Luke Tweedy before the recently-graduated singer-songwriter relocated to Spokane (where he’s currently based). Noble can’t help but lay down one more massive Midwestern rock and roll statement before leaving the Driftless Area, a record that sounds like a freight train counterbalanced by the earnest writing at the center of the storm.

As It Was, As We Were begins as an album frantically beamed from nowhere to nothing–how else can one describe a record that shoots out of the gate like a dog slipping out of its leash with a Superchunk-indie-punk anthem called “Escape”, continues into a heavy, six-minute Hum-like alt-rock anthem called “In Search Of”, and then a punchy fuzz breakdown called “Comets” where Noble asks “What to do, stuck here alone? / Am I really on my own?” Noble rounds out the first half of As It Was, As We Were by confronting isolation and loneliness head on in “Blue to Grey” and the instrumental “On Montrose”. The second half of the record retains the 90s indie rock/punk energy of the rest of the record–a little Jawbreaker/Samiam in “Nothing Else”, some emo in “Pushin On”, and a massive J. Mascis fuzz riff in “Midcoast Kids”, but the isolation in the lyrics is a more interpersonal one, from the uncertain nostalgia in the former of those three tracks to the song-length apology in the middle one, or the fiery apocalyptic moods of late-record Tony Molina-esque scorcher “The End”. The most cathartic moment on As It Was, As We Were is “Midcoast Kids”, a song that deals with everything by turning the guitars up loud and driving around all over town “till curfew”. Noble situates us along the Mississippi, but between the guitars and attitude, it’s timeless and universal. (Bandcamp link)

Bug Seance – I’m Right Here

Release date: May 17th
Record label: Mind Goblin
Genre: Emo, shoegaze, emo-gaze, shoemo, emo with shoegaze in it, shoega–
Formats: Cassette, digital
Pull Track: These Days

Bug Seance are a five-piece fuzzy indie rock band from Portland, Oregon who’ve been kicking around since the beginning of this decade–they put out their debut EP, Erasing, back in 2020, and the three-track Retracing (featuring new recordings of the band’s first songs) followed in 2022. The band’s third EP, I’m Right Here, has been in the making for several years now–the quintet (bassist Javier Vasquez, synth player Maria Dehart, guitarists Pete Benson and Sean Cooper, and drummer Xochitl Vilorio) released the first single from it, “Wavering”, back in 2021, and songs continued to steadily trickle out before its cassette release in May. I’m Right Here is Bug Seance’s most substantial release yet–in a half-dozen songs and twenty-five minutes, the band deliver a polished, confident version of emo-y shoegaze (or shoegaze-y emo) that’d be right at home on labels like Topshelf, Count Your Lucky Stars, or fellow Portlanders Really Rad. I’m Right Here stands out due to Bug Seance’s cohesion, with the band’s five members (who all share vocal duty) being able to pull off both moments of wall-of-sound noisiness and an earnest, West Coast emotional fuzz-pop side with equal believability. 

Arguably the EP’s punchiest track, “Wavering” kicks off I’m Right Here with pop hooks, punk energy, and a wistful emo-y lead vocal–all of which are only enhanced by the song’s huge gang-vocal-bait big finish. “I Can Always Count on You” cranks the amps up a bit, dipping into grunge-gaze just so, but Bug Seance keep the vocals front and center and keep the record’s pop momentum rolling. The twin five-minute tracks in the middle of the cassette are the reason why I’m Right Here feels as grand as it does–“November” wanders in a labyrinth of distorted guitars and fuzzed-out dreaminess, the furthest thing from “punk” and “pop” the band have offered up yet, and while “The Raddest Day” eventually reaches a fiery conclusion, it gets there by passing through chilly indie rock and a quiet, slow-building midsection. Having proven their “grower” bona fides, Bug Seance rewards us with a piece of bubblegum in the incredibly breezy “These Days” and then close with “Aardvark”, a song that is so sublimely “emo-gaze” that it makes perfect sense that it ends with post-hardcore screaming that’s doing its best to make itself heard over an in-the-red guitar attack. The primary push-and-pull of I’m Right Here isn’t between genres so much as between fragile beauty and sonic might. (Bandcamp link)

Workers Comp – Workers Comp

Release date: May 31st
Record label: Ever/Never
Genre: Garage rock, fuzz rock, alt-country, lo-fi rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: High on the Job

The three members of garage rockers Workers Comp all have notable backgrounds in similar such bands–singer/guitarist Joshua Gillis played in Detroit group Deadbeat Beat, drummer Ryan McKeever leads the Omaha-originating, D.C.-based Staffers, and bassist Luke Reddick has done time in Posmic, Saturday Night, and Divorce Horse. Between 2022 and 2023, three different four-song cassettes EPs and a 7” single from Workers Comp surfaced on the Baltimore-based Gillis’ own label, Glad Fact, all of which displayed a strong grasp of distorted, blustery lo-fi garage rock. Their first long-player is a compilation of this previously-released material, put out through Ever/Never Records (Ryan Davis & The Roadhouse Band, Obnox, Dan Melchior), with the addition of one new song (“Basic Values”). McKeever’s Omaha roots are felt on the Workers Comp LP, both in the presence of guest vocalist Anna McClellan on “Never Have I Ever” and on the sound of the album as a whole, evoking a specifically blown-out, ragged version of Americana and rock and roll practiced by the likes of David Nance.

Workers Comp emerged fully formed on their debut EP, One Horse Pony, which comprises the first four tracks of this compilation. The delicate, woozy country rock of “When I’m Here” and the chugging garage burner of “Pick and Choose” set up some of Workers Comp’s greatest strengths, and the simple rock and roll throwback of “High on the Job” is an incredibly potent performance that might be the strongest song on the whole record. McClellan’s turn on the lilting “Never Have I Ever” is the biggest departure on the second EP, When in Room, which otherwise picks up where Workers Comp left off on their first record (for a more subtle change, one might closely inspect “Peel Away”, a piece of fuzz-fried Devo-core that widens the Workers Comp sound just so slightly). 2023’s Crazy with Sweat is the most polished Workers Comp release yet–not “hi-fi” exactly, but with a cleaner sound that emphasizes the retro-pop aspects of the trio’s sound. The lead guitar on “Good Luck” (courtesy of Brendan Reichhardt, also of Posmic) is the cherry on top, but the compilation ends with a more ramshackle take on garage rock in the form of “Basic Values”–an affirmation that, wherever Workers Comp goes from here, their core mission seems likely to stay intact. (Bandcamp link)

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