New Animal

Nerves | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (July 27, 1999)
• Original Release Date: July 20, 1999
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Thrill Jockey
• ASIN: B00000JKQP
• Also Available in: Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #849,940 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Avoiding the "The" before their moniker, Nerves play a just-raw-enough brand of lanky postpunk to merit having their name stand alone. Vocalist and guitarist Rob Datum might be nodding a tad to data nuts Pere Ubu (and prime data nut David Thomas) with his surname, because his pinched vocalic anguish certainly sounds like Ubu. The band's an unaugmented trio, lean and fierce, with a penchant for late-1970s punk that speaks volumes. They've avoided slick production and instead press hard on scrambled guitar soloing that recalls the Minutemen's late founder D. Boon. But there's also a tense shriek of the blues shooting through all Nerves songs, whether in the pulsing kick of "Cry, Cry" and "Get Me High" or the overall richly drawn, if ragged, guitar and bass interplay atop the hard-hit open rhythms of drummer Elliott Dicks. It's great to hear unreconstructed D.I.Y. punk spirit seething in such a rich measure. --Andrew Bartlett

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dark, sexy pop music for days with Orange Skies, October 11, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: New Animal (Audio CD)

New Animal is a beast of beauty. Reminds me of the Doors "Soft Parade", as well as other 60's garage bands (Seeds, Animals, Love), and must mention Dead Moon and Stooges too! Undoubtedly, my favorite album in a long, long time! Listen to it and find out why! Stunning live show as well.

5.0 out of 5 stars CAN YOU FEEL IT?, October 24, 1999

By 

iggy66 (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: New Animal (Audio CD)

This album throbs with the sort of authentic intensity that's been missing for a long time in rock-n-roll. Think of the first DMZ record, or the Stooges' Funhouse, or the Doors' LA Woman, NEW ANIMAL shares that same sort of perfection, a complete album. From the ominous opening of "Die Tonight" to the apocalyptic howling of the title track, "New Animal", this record fulfills every rock-n-roll promise. It's loud, sexy, and dangerous. This is the kind of record that gives me hope that rock-n-roll is not dead, it has only been sleeping. NOTE: I just saw them live, they are even better than the record.

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars kinda lame attempt at something vaguely punk rock, March 7, 2001

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: New Animal (Audio CD)

Nerves show their influences plainly. Some songs are reminiscent of 60s garage bands, others of 70s punk, many on this album sound a lot like mid-80s Gun Club (from the "Mother Juno" period, not the bluesier Gun Club sound from "Fire of Love".) But they don't ever fuse these sounds together to form a style of their own, unless that style is simply to inject the music they play with an insipid blandness. The garage-ish songs sound like an anemic version of their 60s models. The punk-ish songs sound like watered-down punk, and the Gun Club-ish songs sound like lame out-takes from some justly forgotten Gun Club sessions. Maybe it's their producer's fault. But someone should tell them that this kind of music is supposed to ROCK and sound energetic. If it just goes through the motions it's not worth listening to.