“American Weirdos” sets the tone quickly on Dismal Nitch, the second album from Hurry Up, with a refrain of “American weirdos/ Don’t need no more heroes.”
A three-piece from Portland, OR, the lineup features Kathy Foster (Thermals), Westin Glass (Thermals), and Maggie Vail (Bangs), each sharing songwriting duties and vocals. Recorded shortly before the pandemic hit, this record does sometimes feel a little dated; not in relation to the state of the world, but that it would fit in with the mid-to-late ‘90s Kill Rock Stars catalog of guitar-driven weirdo punk. Dismal Nitch features a lot of variety in tempo and vocalist, but it’s always guitar-forward and in the same key. Each songwriter has a unique style, but there’s a unified tone throughout.
Some of the first notes I took about this record were about “American Weirdos,” which comes across something like a mix of Bratmobile and Selby Tigers. It’s aggressive but a little playful, with punchy, rhythmic vocals that perfectly match the freak flag vibe, doubling down with a “whoa-oh” to get in your head from the start. While it goes big on melody on track one, the band mixes up tempos and time signatures over the next twelve songs. And while there is a lot of good stuff on Dismal Nitch it ultimately starts to lose luster by the end. Maybe it’s sequencing or maybe it’s just too long, but even with three songwriting styles, it kind of blends together to me. I think a reason for this are two of the three vocalists sing in a sleepy, less emphatic manner that scratches off some of the luster. As far as emotional highs and low, the guitar does most of the talking on this record. Sometimes call and response vocals give a little boost, but they use the trick too often over thirteen songs for it to feel vibrant the whole way through. While it’s often energetic, bouncy and danceable punk, Hurry Up isn’t afraid to slow it down. Then, they crash with a few ballad-like tempos throughout.
“Toxic Lies” has some nice vocal variation, including some of those trade-offs. Then the tempo builds with “Fire in the Western World” with some nice harmonies and a bit more of a ‘70s rock big riff vibe. The songs that integrate more melody jump out to me, countering big vocals with winding, somewhat chromatic guitar+bass progressions.
There are some great highs here and, ironically, pretty good lows too. But the record kind of sits in the middle too much. Fewer songs or more tonal variation would make Dismal Nitch more interesting. It starts strong but loses steam as an album. There are some really nice singles here, but the sum of the parts leaves me a little worn out by the end.
