The Big Apple has long had an almost fabled love affair with punk rock, which I don’t need to go into here, because any music fan worth their salt will already be aware of it. And when you think of punk in New York, you would be forgiven for gravitating towards the ever popular New York Hardcore scene, but you’d be missing a trick, because delve a bit deeper and you would find the likes of Nadir.
Busting out of Queens the three piece, play modern punk rock as it were. A little bit of Social Distortion a pinch of Alkaline Trio. Not particularly fast or abrasive, just good old fashioned rock n’roll inspired punk, with lashings of attitude and feeling. The brainchild of Off With Their Heads bass player Robbie Smartwood, choosing the six string this time around, Nadir’s Collecting Misery literally does that, with eight tracks of upbeat misery. They occasionally veer off into Against Me territory, with the likes of Early Graves and the acoustic title track itself, which isn’t a bad thing in my book and shows a different side to the band, while remaining true to their core sound, but it’s soon kicked back up a notch with Paper Trails. Smartwood and his guitar examine loneliness on the thoroughly depressing (in a good way) Born To Die Alone, before a rousing finale in Back Home, leaves you panting for more.I really can’t say enough good things about this album. Its miserable content countered by its mostly upbeat demeanor will leave your emotions in a mess, which is what all good music should aspire to do. Collecting Misery is the bands first outing and I look forward to bigger things for them as Nadir should and surely will be the band on everybody’s lips.