Naked Giants | Saturday, February 18
It’s awfully hard to give a much better first impression than Naked Giants did with “Dead/Alien,” the opening track on their 2018 debut LP SLUFF. A flurry of dissonance eases you into what turns out to be a brashly infectious blend of surfy punk, strangely melodic noise, and the kind of unbridled enthusiasm that can’t be manufactured. When they burst on the scene, Naked Giants’ triumvirate of merrymakers – Grant Mullen, Gianni Aiello, Henry LaVallee – were yet another group of fresh-faced, high school grads, bringing their energy and ambition with them, in all its’ bottled-up glory. In 2023, Naked Giants have established themselves as one of the more surprising entrants in the Pacific Northwest’s crowded field of melodic indie punk.
2020’s The Shadow finds them flexing more of what they can do, like on the slinky, New Wave bounce of “Take A Chance”; the utterly unexpected, swooningly U2-esque “Turn Blue”; and the further exploration of psych-rock on the title track. Rock critics tend to use the word “mature” to describe a band’s growth and development, and unfortunately, it’s hard not to associate that word with a band becoming boring, staid, and safe. In the case of Naked Giants, their maturation has only made them more thrilling to hear – now that we know what they were able to toss off as teenagers, and we’ve heard what they can deliver as a diverse and anticipated follow-up, the sky’s the limit for just what Naked Giants are capable of.
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