The Feeling by Naomi Punk (Album)

Naomi Punk

Naomi Punk

The eagerly anticipated debut from Seattle’s Naomi Punk more than delivers, with stripped down, bare-boned garage grunge-rock that feels oh-so-90s


‘ve always had a love for noise rock/punk that sounds like it came straight of the 90s. That image of faded t-shirts with animals on them, jamming in a dank concrete garage with skateboards propped up against the wall for play after a band practise. Well, Naomi Punk embody just that.

Dripping with adrenaline, this is a record for that anticipatory time between afternoon and evening. The time when the stale taste of old cider has been covered by a carpet of cigarette ash, when the need to reacquaint yourself with mischief bubbles impatiently; the time when you want to throw on something to soundtrack the night ahead.

The fuzzy guitar and reverb sound very much like the band Pagoda, with a dash of the excellent Gauntlet Hair thrown in. All three bands invoke the spirit of their grunge forebears, but Naomi Punk has their own spin. They clash (jarring riffs with melodic tones) like mixing leather with lace; it pieces together jigsaw tunes and creates the brooding, psychedelic beast that is The Feeling.

There’s an underlying weight that pushes down on your shoulders with every song, the undeniable, cloying, energy of tooth-and-claw teenage angst. Each note is slowly elongated in the lethargic Trashworld (my personal favourite) with the pace only picking up toward the songs climax, with vocals, hissing and spitting in a lazy drawl. The marching drum of Burned Body is a driving force with charred black lyrics between beats. The Spell packs a hopeful punch – “I am the sun, I am the shooting star” – from opening line to finish, the drum hitting a primal chord within the listener, seeking out emotion rather than intellect.

Verdict: A visceral battering for your eardrums

Scarlett Parker




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