There is an urgency to the music of No Nations that is as hard to define as the band itself. The Boston sextet, a group of dudes who have spent most of their lives on stage, in the van, and out in the crowd, were, like most of us, caught standing still during the pandemic.
The tension of that inactivity has manifested itself into a pair of debut tracks â this past Decemberâs âSeltzer,â and the forthcoming âQueso,â set for release on Friday, January 21. Both songs make up No Nationsâ debut cassette, self-released and recorded and mastered with Chris Johnson (Deafheaven, Doomriders) at Mad Oak Studios in Allston, Massachusetts. Â Â
Where âSeltzerâ was a post-hardcore/grunge punch to the face that declared their arrival, âQuesoâ is a warmer embrace to help us back up, a more melodic turn of shoegaze, dream-rock, and alt-indie, that already shows a varied layer to the bandâs sonic spectrum. Â
âWhen youâre starting a new project, itâs best to showcase some diversity in what a listener can expect in the future,â says vocalist Kyle Neeson. âWe show a wide range, from the layered screams at the end of âSeltzerâ, to the sing-along emo ending in âQuesoâ. More specifically, âQuesoâ is about the kind of relationship that comes, burns, and goes, and the reactions we have to that kind of âthere and goneâ thing.â
Says guitarist Erik Wormwood: âWe were definitely feeling a little more melodic on this one, vocally as well. I think people who are familiar with Kyleâs bands in the past havenât really heard him get into melody and harmonies and stuff. I remember the first time he sang the chorus of the song heâd written in the practice space and I was like âShit Iâve never heard Kyle write lines like thatâ. We were all pretty stoked.â
No Nations take their moniker from a political idea that can apply to music as well: Taking down power structures that assert dominance of some more than others, and removing borders and boundary lines from everything we do as people and a society. For No Nations, that ideology is furthered in its sound, its vision, and its own ideology within the group.Â
Conceived by Wormwood, many of the players in No Nations have played together in past bands, with a musical DNA that runs deep in the Boston and New England music scene, extending to the likes of I am become Death, Suffer on Acid, Kimachi, Cocked N Loaded, Polarbaron, The Vershok, Mean Creek, Marconi, and countless others you saw that one time at that venue somewhere. The lineup reads like the mugshots displayed in their press photo: Wormwood and Neeson are joined by Garrett Gordon (bass), Jason Perry (guitar and synth), Jason Seaver (drums), and Steve Trombley (guitar).Â
No Nations are:
Erik Wormwood: Guitar
Garrett Gordon:Â Bass
Jason Seaver: Drums
Kyle Neeson: Vocals
Steve Trombley: Guitar
Jason Perry: Guitar and Synth
âThe musical vision for No Nations I think tries to fuck with a lot of the stuff I loved about getting into music in the first place,â says Wormwood. âThere are some heavier, driving rhythms that I got from playing punk and hardcore. There is some guitar interplay that takes from early â90s alternative music. There are melodies and melodic interplay I dig from mid- to late-â90s emo. I also love fucking around with some of the repetition of Krautrock where a simple pattern repeats and there is stuff that builds around it. Overall, I think a lot of this reflects our experiences playing in bands before. Most of us played mostly in hardcore bands and listened to alternative music in our down time so I think there is an element of that.â
âQuesoâ was born out of drum compositions Seaver sent Wormwood during the height of pandemic quarantine in 2020, and Wormwood fleshed them out into demos, a process repeated often for No Nations songs.
âI listened to a podcast with Janet Weiss recently and she was talking about her time in Sleater-Kinney, and how so many of their songs started with a drum beat,â Wormwood says. âI love tinkering around with notes and rhythms on the guitar, but I love writing over a beat. Like âSeltzerâ, this song started with an arrangement of drum beats. Musically I am still super into layering modulating guitars, but I was kinda chasing this idea to layer stuff that is a little more jangly and less lush sounding. Kinda more mid-western emo in tone. I think thatâs where some of the more melodic stuff came out too, I think.â
Wormwood worked with the band on the ending melody, and crafted the closing lyric âafter talking to an old friend who was feeling kinda fucked up about the state of the world, and how hard stuff could feel sometimes. Everyone felt and seemed more anxious, myself included, around that time.â
That anxiousness hasnât really gone away, itâs just been replaced by a different flavor of anxiety. Two years into the pandemic, No Nations are starting to show their own colors, and their musical reactions to life standing still. As âQuesoâ flows out of the speakers, the frustrated emotions of a band only able to do half the things they want to â write and record songs, but unable to play them in a live setting â are embedded in the sound.
âIâm looking forward to playing our first show; I havenât been in front of a crowd for over two years now,â admits Neeson. âIâd love to get back out there and see what it looks and feels like.â His goals for 2022: âWrite more, and constantly. Finish more songs. Play a show. Shoot a video. Solve the climate crisis. Provide a living wage to everyone. Universal healthcare. Tour the world. Thatâs the vision for 22, and Iâm feeling it. But Iâll settle for safe practices and a nice meal with the mates after.â
In the meantime, plans to head back into the studio to record more music with Johnson are coming up. From there, itâs anyoneâs guess.Â
âWe are stoked to share âQuesoâ with you, and we are stoked for this next batch of songs we are recording in the spring,â says Wormwood. âWe are gonna try and book a show in March depending on the state of the world. We have been talking to some awesome bands both local and outta town that are so rad, so we couldnât be happier for the chance to play a show again soon if things are on the safe side. But who knows.â