Review: “Nylon Otters” by Nylon Otters

With vocals that sound like a gunshot, Julian Casablancas, or a severely bludgeoned Kurt Cobain, Nylon Otters dismantles the fetters of thought in its final, eponymous release. This album is here to beat the ever-living shit out of your equilibrium with mesmerizing, disassociative, and chaotic indie rock.

For an album such as this, the literal meaning of the lyrics is elusive, with the arrangements not permitting the words to set into a comfortable groove. “Nylon Otters” is deeply subversive in this fashion and challenges the listener to draw their own conclusions about the work. As an artistic statement, it’s a wonderful send-off to a too short-lived group from Buffalo, New York. If you can look past the combative nature of the songs and submit to the world portrayed, you will find a strangely fitting work in a strangely nonsensical time.

Tracks

1. 24 and Counting

This opening track is a tune that quickly paints the scene of vague placement and social happening, such as a story of an overly friendly stranger at a soured basement show. With a delivery that comes across as both belligerent and frightened, vocalist Logan Ross bombards the listener with a rather insular description of a night out with a mysterious antagonist which involves self-doubt, feelings of hypocrisy, and imperious confrontation. The narrative lens of the song is vague too; it’s not so much a story as a gutter pump of emotional dysphoria. This is garage rock with derelict mysticism — or a piss-drunk bedlam, if you like. 

2. Gaba

This waltzing tune makes nostalgia somehow perverse. The vocal presence in the song is buried in a thorny arrangement of snappy drumming and a prickly guitar arpeggiation. Consequently, the voice of the song actively resists interpretation. But in (perhaps) a stroke of mixing brilliance, the notes which do shine through clearly express the message in the lines “Comfy, Cozy” and “I’m not one to talk to you.”

Similarly unsocial as “24 and Counting,” “Gaba” adds some structure and riffiness and an additional droning harmonica line. The verses are composed of meandering, low-mixed free thought punctuated by the conversational phrase “all of this to say.”

3. Pockets

This is a song about being checked-out and completely compartmentalized. This number gives off a Strokes vibes but more in the vein of “being a scumbag” (“When I’m not being honest, that ain’t lyin’… do I not fit in your pocket? Do I fill out your pocket?”).

It’s delightfully not feel-good, but with a compelling enough rhythm to take direction and likewise check out — just dance, and pretend to get it. “Pockets” flirts ambitiously with deception. This exercise of social obscurity is lacquered with a seductive sheen of double entendre and Janus-faced people.

4. Leg Room

This track is my personal favorite on the release. With the most aesthetically pleasing framing of Ross’s vocals, this song roars out with the right amount of intensity and focus while still maintaining enough entropy from the rest of the album to create something that’s inviting to plug into without a second thought. Power is well-controlled, which allows for some trancing breakdowns, a good melody, and something that’s more of a spectacle than a misanthropic statement. It’s something, that’s for sure.

5. Call and Response

Utter discontent, paranoia, and bitterness take flight in this undulation of a song. Another practice in deception, the title of this song belies the profound unease suggested to exist in the world of people, places, and things. It’s a song of “wont’s,” disuse, removal, and exclusion.

The call and response ultimately boils down to the eternal conflict between love, its expression and reservation from pain. The outlook “I’m just too cautious and clean” somehow unifies the soul of the release; all of this unwillingness to be friendly, open, and vulnerable is revealed to be the byproduct of aloofness as a coping mechanism. What may have been taken as celebratory becomes cautionary.

The Verdict

This is a challenging listen that falls more sharply into the category of artistic statement than anything else. “Nylon Otters” is not a generically attractive release, but I think it’s quite good for what it is. The album’s specificity is purposeful — there’s a psychological portrait of an artist and his sense of self in the world offered here.

My interpretation is that this record is an expression of acute self-awareness. There is an empathy to be leant to Ross and the band who, with this collection of pugilistic musicianship, remind us the world isn’t easily navigated. Sometimes in order to persist, we check out and become distanced from others and, most importantly, ourselves. It isn’t proffered as a virtue, but rather a complicated measure against codependency. I can’t recommend Nylon Otters to every listener, but I happily suggest it to those who engage with bellicose music that agitates and excites.