The band's name may suggest gothness to the core, but what Nosferatu D2 are, in fact, all about is low-fi slacker indie, and what they lack in refinement and expensive production they more than compensate in emotional range and passion.
The first couple of songs on this clumsily-named album (the full title of which is 'We're gonna walk around this city with our headphones on to block out the noise') have me thinking just how much they remind me of early Pavement, The Wedding Present, 'You're Living All Over Me' era Dinosaur Jr... then I read the press release. Either I'm pretty sharp at spotting influences, or Nosferatu D2 are pretty blatant in their assimilation of theirs. Perhaps it's a bit of both, but who cares? Every band has its influences, and on the evidence here, Nosferatu D2 have listened to some cool records and drawn on them to good effect.
Polished it isn't. The guitars are by turns choppy, clean and jangly, off-key, jarring, dissonant and frenetic. The singer sounds at times like he couldn't carry a melody in a bucket, but what's lacking in technical ability and slickness is more than compensated in passion and emotional sincerity. The sound of angst and heartbreak isn't melodic, doesn't sound like Whitney Houston (perhaps not the best comparison given some of the footage from her comeback tour, but you get the idea).
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There's more than a nod to Pavement's 'Our Singer' in 'Colonel Parker,' a song about performing which features the lines 'when I get on stage / watch me vomit my soul out / I get pins and needles / I get too self-conscious' delivered in an off-tune yelp before the tempo goes haywire a few bars later and the subject matter turns to Shakin' Stevens. Genius!
Yes, it's ramshackle, amateurish even, and there's a tendency to pack in far more words into a line than comfortably fit into a bar, but this all contributes to the intensity of the anguished awkwardness of Nosferatu D2's sound and outlook, a perspective formed from that of an outsider in the modern landscape of 'Maccy D's' and popular culture. It's this directness and proximity to the all-to-real that really carries this album and ultimately makes it work.
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