The Nude Party Look Who’s Back
My wife says I listen to depressing music. She’s not wrong. Next time she reminds me of that, I’ll put on The Nude Party’s Look Who’s Back — nine songs that dare you not to smile.
In a moment when much of the Americana scene leans inward — often beautifully so — The Nude Party offer something different: a record built on velocity, volume, and guitars. This isn’t an album chasing gravitas. It’s a band in a room — amps warm, drums cracking, everyone leaning into the downbeat.
That looseness is intentional. The band drove out to Joshua Tree mid-tour and cut the album in five fast days with Montreal-based singer-songwriter-producer Michael Rault. He keeps the performances immediate — guitars bite, the rhythm section rolls. Nothing feels labored. The guitars stack. The choruses land.
That drive isn’t accidental. The band hasn’t changed: Patton Magee (vocals, guitars, harmonica), Shaun Couture (vocals, guitars), Connor Mikita (drums), Alec Castillo (bass), Zachary Merrill (keys), Austin Brose (percussion), and Jon “Catfish” Delorme (pedal steel, dobro). Guest harmonies from Pearl Charles and Lady Apple Tree on “Sweetheart of the Radio” add another layer without softening the edge.
Earlier records leaned into Stonesy twang; here, The Nude Party add a dose of English pub-rock flavor — think Rockpile with more guitars. Pedal steel remains in the mix, but the dominant mood is bar-band exuberance. Tight without being tidy. Swaggering without being self-serious.
The title track struts from the first bar. Its refrain — “Look who’s back again” — is aimed at a fairweather friend but delivered with a wink. “Walk That Walk” is the album’s mission statement: glammy, riff-heavy, built around a chorus that feels less like advice than a dare. The band locks into a stomp built to fill rooms, not playlists.
“Sweetheart of the Radio” leans into cosmic country, pedal steel shimmering beneath road-worn harmonies. “Honey for the Barflies” rides a swampy groove, communal and a little ragged at the edges, its chorus built for raised glasses and shouted backing vocals. Even the quieter moments don’t linger. The album keeps moving.
It’s worth remembering that The Nude Party didn’t arrive as revivalists chasing a trend. The band formed at Appalachian State in Boone, North Carolina, cutting their teeth on basement shows before grinding through DIY tours and eventually signing to New West Records. Their 2018 self-titled debut and 2020’s Midnight Manor sharpened their garage-rock instincts, while 2023’s Rides On leaned further into country and groove. Over more than a decade together, they’ve built a catalog that blurs garage rock, country twang, swagger, and roots groove.
That blurring is part of what makes today’s Americana scene exciting. The lines between rock, country, and roots music rarely hold, and The Nude Party thrive in that overlap. They’re not confessional singer-songwriters, nor are they strict traditionalists. They sit closer to a lineage that understood Americana as electricity as much as authenticity: The Rolling Stones chasing American blues, The Flying Burrito Brothers plugging in honky-tonk, early Wilco when bar-band looseness mattered as much as structure.
Are the lyrics always revelatory? No. But that’s not the point. This is a band that thrives on chemistry — seven players who have spent more than a decade living, touring, and working alongside one another. That shared muscle memory shows. They lock in. They surge. They know exactly how far to stretch before snapping back into the groove.
The closer, “Juarez,” lets the dust settle, shifting into blues-country storytelling without slowing down. It’s a reminder that beneath the party atmosphere there’s structure — hooks that stick, arrangements that breathe, and just enough twang to keep one boot planted in the roots tradition.
Look Who’s Back doesn’t pretend to reinvent anything. It doesn’t need to. In a crowded Americana scene often defined by introspection, The Nude Party deliver something simple and necessary: a reminder that rock and roll — fast, loud, communal — still belongs inside the tent. Sometimes the most honest move isn’t to dig deeper.
It’s to turn up.
Find more details here on their website: https://www.thenudepartymusic.com
Mark Pelavin, a failed retiree, is a writer, consultant and music in St. Michaels, MD. His newsletter, A Feather in the Wind, is at https://markpelavin.substack.com/.