NAKED GIANTS (Seattle, WA)
‘SLUFF’ is a word that means both everything and nothing, but it definitely sums up the three distinct personalities that make up Naked Giants. Depending which member you ask, SLUFF is either slang for the black gunk that comes off your shoes when it snows in the winter, an acronym that stands for South Lake Union Fuck Face (a reference to the tech bros who have infiltrated Seattle in recent years) or what a snake does when it sheds its skin. It’s also the title – and a song on – the band’s debut full-length. Formed in 2015, the Seattle trio – guitarist/vocalist Grant Mullen, bassist/vocalist Gianni Aiello and drummer Henry LaVallee – put out debut EP R.I.P. the following year and have been steadily building up their reputation as a live act in the meantime, and having as much fun as possible while doing it. Because as much as the three-piece – who are all in their very early 20s now – have their heads screwed on and are fiercely intelligent people, they also want to let loose and enjoy being in a band. After all, that’s kind of what being in a band with your closest friends is all about. “I just want to make as much noise and have as much fun and get as sweaty as I can,” says LaVallee, “and if that resonates with people, that’s who I want in my life. That’s who I want to play music for.” That clash of the cerebral and the intelligent – the desire to say something meaningful but also just have some fun – is what underpins the very essence of who Naked Giants is. It’s a band of contradictions. Their music, which is simultaneously timeless and modern, new and old, is loud and brash and raw, but there’s vulnerability there, too. In fact, debut album SLUFF is a melting pot of ideas and sounds that, on paper, don’t seem like they would go together, but which form one phenomenally cohesive whole. “These are songs that we’ve played live for a long time,” explains Mullen. “We wanted to showcase the different kinds of songs we’ve written and put them all onto an album that flows together, making it tie together into something that means something.” That’s exactly what they do on SLUFF’s twelve weird and wonderful songs. Recorded with producer Steve Fisk (Nirvana/Screaming Trees/Beat Happening/Car Seat Headrest/Low/Minus The Bear) in Seattle at Avast! and Soundhouse Studios over the course of two and a half weeks in October, the record is a dizzying mélange of influences and ideas. It swirls with hyperactive restlessness as 1960s harmonies share space with 1970s riffs while at the same time battling an undercurrent of punk rock and more modern indie influences. The song “TV”, for example, is a kaleidoscope of sound that seems to take in the whole history of rock’n’roll but reframes it in a more contemporary context.
https://nakedgiants.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/NKDGNTS/
KID CRUISE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNiEBgX_NX0
https://www.facebook.com/Kid-Cruise-266226713978345/
Source: Windmill Brixton website
