Closing Time, time for you to go out to the…
Wait, no.
Not that Feeling Strangely Fine…
But perhaps anchored in the same era.
In the smoldering ruins of the great rock landscape that still glows nearly a decade and a half after its demise, with the occasional flare up, a flame begins to grow. From time to time there emerges a band that revives the slick riffs accompanied by passionate lyrics that build and drive with a force that keeps you coming back again and again.
Like a phoenix, DC-based No Blitz rises from the ashes, brushes themselves off, spreads their wings, and gloriously takes to the air on the wings of a rare, broken breed of rock that refreshingly illuminates the landscape below.
Feeling Strangely Fine, the follow up to Never Satisfied, wearily gains its legs under the heavy-handed first two tracks “Losing Control” and “No Damn Good.” Coming out of the gates swinging, the album appears to consist of random haymakers rather than precision. But then something remarkable happens.
From the third track on, aptly titled “Changes,” Feeling begins to take stride. Led by a well-balanced rock track that could easily find refuge in the late-90s, the third release from Ryan Wogh, James Cichra, Dan Horner, and Nick Lopiano continues from this point on, confidently on a wave of nine track rock goodness. Balancing between the driving sounds like “Fire Away,” the effervescent licks of “Send and Return,” and the alt-rock teeth of “On To You,” I can’t help but become drawn to the immense sound from these DC four. All eleven songs find cohesion in a body of work that is self-aware and purposeful.
My mind gravitates to early Foo with fresh doses of eager, in-your-face passion. Built on a lack of pretense and a resounding wall of sound, Wogh, Cichra, Horner, and Lopiano have taken their creation and skills to the next level with this album.
The broad strokes under the moniker “rock” are often diluted and an easy out for most, but after listening to the latest from No Blitz I, honestly, find myself, in every way possibly rock, Feeling Strangely Fine.
Greg is a co-founder and regular contributor to Nanobot Rock.
